


night shift, please

by Fictropes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Depression mentions, Doctor Phil, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Resident/junior doctor dan, Smut, and wait for this: strangers to lovers back to 'strangers', anxiety mentions, hopsital typical tw: blood injuries death (none to main characters), hospital au, then to friends then back to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: Ten years and he’ll never get over how early he has to get up sometimes. In all honesty he prefers the night shift.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 168
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [if you want to follow me on tumblr where I am just as stupid! ](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)

He’s pretty. Too pretty for his own good.  


  
He knows it too. 

  
  
He meets Phil’s gaze from across the bar, tilts his head, a look of - _you want me, don’t you?_

And honestly, it’s not a question at all - shouldn’t be a question. It should be a statement a - _you want me, don’t you._

Because. _Yes._ Yes, fuck, does Phil _want._

It’s been a while. Busy schedules and night shifts and the general workaholic in him make it difficult. Tonight he can make an exception, he’d be a fool not to. 

  
  
They’re locked in some sort of weird staring contest, the man quirks an eyebrow. Phil copies him. 

He’s suddenly smiling and it’s all big and silly, not the seductive thing he’d been expecting, but it knocks him off guard even more than if it had been. He can see the dimples all the way from here, wants to stick his fingers in them just to see how deep they are.

He’s mouthing - something? 

_Swim near?_

No. Obviously not. They’re not in a pool, they’re in a bar in the middle of a London. It’s a dingy thing, all peeling bar mats and stools that look like they’d break if you sat on them wrong. _He_ doesn’t fit in, he looks like he should be in the VIP section of a club with a mile long guest-list. 

_Christmas fear?_

  
  
What? No. Phil can’t actually lip read. It’s also March, a good few months before the Christmas - fear? - kicks in. 

_Will you come here?_

  
  
Oh! Oh. That makes more sense. 

-

He’s called Dan, he’s 29 and he’s - “Jesus Christ. This isn’t the Spanish inquisition.”

  
  
“I was being polite!” He defends, crossing his arms across his chest in a spectacular display of how to turn off your one night stand. Dan, though, he looks a cross between completely done and turned on, looks like he can’t quite work out _why_ that mix of emotions. 

“Alright.” Dan’s leaning against the hallway wall, all long lean lines and too tight jeans that Phil is a bit scared of. Jeans are a nightmare, they’re going to struggle to get them off and it’s all going to bea bit awkward when they part to wiggle out of them. “Do you want me, Phil?”

  
  
And want is too simple a thing, isn’t it? Because Phil had been sat next to Dan in a taxi for ten minutes - “ _I can’t walk to yours in the rain, i’ll look like a fucking poodle_.”

  
  
Those ten minutes were Dan’s hand just above Phil’s knee, Phil’s head creating a vivid future in which this wasn’t just a one night stand. Dan would probably move into his, he’d suit sitting at his breakfast bar all soft and sleepy the morning.  


That had always been an issue, going too deep into his own brain when he shouldn’t. It was a repeated thing in school reports - _spends too much time daydreaming, maths isn’t the place for creative writing, the divide and minus signs are not aliens waging war against plus and times, if he paid attention in PE he’d stop getting so many balls to the face._

_  
_  
He actually likes getting balls to the face, thank you very much. 

  
  
“Earth to Phil, anybody in there?” Dan is suddenly very close, gently tapping above his ear. “Are you pissed?” He asks, and he smells like expensive cologne. Not the sort that makes you choke, the sort that people wear in an attempt to say - _look how important I am_ \- it’s subtle, deep, makes Phil lean in a little more. 

“No, I only had one.” Phil swallows, tries to get the normal tone of his voice back. “Just you— you’re all - you. “

“I’m me? Never knew, tell me more.” The hand goes from tapping to holding, large fingers pressed against the back of skull. He suddenly gets paranoid, what if Dan doesn’t like the shape of his head? He’s been told in the past it’s a bit odd, but his hair does a relatively good job of disguising it. Dan can feel it now, though, god, no hiding from that,what if -“Phil. Again. Where do you keep going?” 

“Sorry. Not done this in a while.” He admits, and was that unsexy of him?

_Sorry, I haven’t had sex in ages so i’m going to be a bit rusty._

“S’alright.” Dan smiles, and Phil can somehow tell it’s genuine. His eyes go crinkly in the corners, the only sign that he’s 29. “We don’t have to go wild.”

  
  
“Wild river rapids is my favourite ride at - er - theme parks.”

  
  
“Do you just say whatever comes into your head?” Dan doesn’t say it cruelly, not like he’s heard in the past. From people who think he’s too weird, from patients who’d demanded another Doctor because ‘ Dr Lester isn’t right in the head’.He says it fondly, with a certain amount of glee, like this was funny to him in a way that wasn’t just laughing at Phil.

Laughing with him - or something. 

“Sort of, yeah. It’s a bit of an issue sometimes, should probably tape my mouth shut.” 

  
  
“Oh? You into that?

  
  
“No! No - no? Just - kiss me. That’ll shut me up.” It’s bolder than he’s been in the past, it makes his hands shake. This is why he hasn’t done this in a while, nothing to do with work, all to do with how jittery it makes him feel. Though this is different, these feelings aren’t born from a nervousness that makes him want to step back and stop, these feelings are _new_. He’s never wanted so desperately to please someone before, sexually, un-sexually. Just in general. 

It’s all quite pleasant, despite how it may look.

“Oh? I suppose we’ll have to test that theory, do you pay your PHD students good money to gather data?” Phil doesn’t get to answer that question, not that he had an answer. Dan does as he’s told, closes the already minuscule gap.  


  
He turns to jelly, all pliant and soft and the complete opposite of what Phil had expected. He’s not saying it’s fireworks, because that doesn’t happen outside of rom-coms, but he will say there’s _something_. A tug at his heart, a little niggle in his brain that demands he cling onto this and never let it go. 

  
  
Maybe that’s more that fireworks. 

  
  
All he knows is he’s never felt it before, and that alone has to mean something. 

  
  
“Do you need chapstick?” Phil murmurs, breaking away just enough to stare. 

  
  
“Wow, thanks.” 

“No! No. Come back, I liked that, it was nice. C’mere.” He catches Dan by the collar of his too fancy shirt, something with lace and definite nipple display if you look from the right angle. “You’re good.” 

  
  
“Even though you think-“ And Dan doesn’t get to finish this time, because Phil goes in for something less tentative, more demanding. It’s now a lead up to more, because there’s hand involved, there’s shuffling down the hallway wrapped up in each other even though it’d be far easier if they just stopped and let go. 

“Steps.” 

  
  
“The band?” And sometimes Dan’s an idiot, too. 

  
  
“No, I mean my apartment has literal steps. Just— be careful.” He still doesn’t let go, neither does Dan. He wonders if this is what chemistry is, this intangible need to just be close. 

“Oh,” Dan snorts, “thought you were about to break out into a rendition of 5, 6, 7, 8.”

  
  
“Ruined it. That was my striptease song for when we eventually get up the stairs.”

  
  
It takes them another five minutes to actually get there, because they keep laughing into each others mouths, keep pausing to shout out songs they’ve remembered from a band who haven’t released anything since 2001. 

  
  
Phil expects it to change once they get into his bedroom, once it becomes obvious they’re actually here to fuck and not to act like a pair of fools. Dan just wanders off, like he lives here, picks random crap up off Phil’s chest of drawers. “Bunny ears?”

  
  
“No.”

  
  
“I literally have them in my hand.” Dan puts them on, Phil hates that it makes his stomach flip. 

  
“Yes, then.”

  
  
“I love interactions and conversations.” It’s still kind, it’s still - fuck, Phil’s a little bit stupid for him. He wants Dan to spend the night, wants him to pick up everything he owns and make a little comment. 

  
  
“Same. We are humans and this is conversing.” Phil’s brave this time, crosses his bedroom to flick at Dan’s new ears, to hold them whilst he draws them back into something that had started downstairs. “You can’t wear them the whole time.”

  
  
“Why not?” Dan smiles against Phil’s mouth, frames his bottom lip and then - bites. 

And, _oh_ , alright. He might be into that. 

“Cos it’s - furry? I’m not quite ready to admit that I am one yet, let me get there in my own time.” Phil laughs, flicks the ears back off Dan’s head. He looks unreal in the light from Phil’s bedroom window, his eyes almost glow gold. Phil’s not sure he hasn’t actually dreamt this up, he’s going to wake in an hour to an empty bed, to rabbit ears he’d sleepwalked into picking up. 

But he’s so hot - in the literal sense - radiates this warmth that Phil couldn’t possibly just dream up. 

“I understand, very personal journey.” It’s solemn, lasts for a second before they’re both giggling like two idiots. “Ugh, shutup. You’re supposed to be doing stuff to me.”

  
  
That also makes his stomach do something, more like butterflies. The idea of getting to do _stuff_ to Dan is unfathomable, even though it’s quite clear Dan asked him back here for it. You didn’t pick a stranger up at a bar to look at their knick-knacks, didn’t kiss them just because. Dan was here for something in particular, and that was the part Phil hated - once the particular was over then everything else would be, too. 

“I can do stuff.” Phil doesn’t know what, hasn’t asked what. Is he supposed to be taking the lead? Had Dan somehow saw that in him at the bar, someone who actually knew what they were doing. He’d had his fair share of this during uni, but that was a different time and not when he was 33, not when he feels like he should be settling down. 

  
  
“Dirty talk needs some work, on both our parts.” Dan’s brave this time, walks them both backwards until they have no choice but to topple back onto Phil’s mattress. 

  
  
“Shit.” Phil suddenly remembers, something vital missing from his bedside drawer. He really didn’t do this often, after the last time he’d promised himself to add some onto his weekly tesco order. Every week he'd forgotten, because there wasn’t any sex in his life to remind him. It was very stupid on his part, and he suddenly felt like he was about to get scolded for not being a grown up who always has everything needed on hand. 

  
  
“What?” Dan is sat on his hips, a hand up Phil’s t-shirt and nothing more. It’s just - warm. There’s no fingers brushing his nipples, no nails digging into his skin, but his heart is still beating too quickly in his chest. 

  
  
“I don’t have any - er, you know. Condoms.”

“S’alright.” Dan bends over, whispers against Phil’s lips like it’s secret just for them, “you have nice hands, you can just finger me.” 

  
  
“Dirty talk is fine on your part.” Phil blurts out after twenty seconds of silence, sure his cheeks are bright red even in the darkness of the bedroom, sure Dan can now hear his heart slamming against his ribcage. 

He’s _too_ much. He’d known that though, hadn’t he? The moment their eyes met. Had taken him home anyway. He’s been known to put things up onto pedestals, only deserving of them if he did something special enough, _won_ something. He’s not done that tonight - with Dan - maybe he should have. 

“I’ll teach you.” Dan’s moving to sit back up, unbuttoning his own shirt. Phil feels like he should be doing it, but he can’t get himself to move. He’s absolutely mesmerised, terrified if he looks away Dan will vanish into thin air. He’s miles and miles of pale skin, littered with freckles that Phil wants to map, wants to play dot-to-dot with - to kiss. 

“Hey, earth to Phil.” He repeats, the fondest smile yet. “I know my nips are distracting but-“ Phil yanks him forward too quickly, causes a near concussion. This time the kiss is fuelled purely by desperation - on Phil’s part - because he has to make the absolute most of tonight, a night that will never happen again no matter how much he wishes the greater good would intervene to change that. “Woah, alright.” Dan’s blinking, hard and fast and any brown is now eclipsed with pure black. 

“Get undressed for me.” Dan’s suddenly shy, all wide eyed innocence as he slips backwards off Phil, like he hadn’t just been the one to suggest a marathon fingering session. 

  
  
He puts on - something. Not quite a show. Not just a person getting undressed. It’s something that leaves Phil with a dry mouth, leaves him half hard in his jeans. He looks to Phil once he’s done, eyes searching for approval - _do you still want me?_

_Yes. Of course. How could I not?_

“Come here.” He says, when what he really means is _consume me, ruin me, stay afterwards_. 

There’s something about being fully dressed whilst Dan’s naked, makes his brain go haywire. He places a hand on Dan’s chest to still him, before he takes his place back in Phil’s lap, needs a second to reach backwards into his drawer for lube.

  
  
“How are you - you’re unreal, you know?” Phil murmurs, not sure if it’s to himself or to Dan. He’s sat back on top of him now, ready for whatever Phil wants to grace him with. He squirts - probably - too much lube on his fingers, gives Dan a questioning glance - _do you still want me?_

_  
  
_Dan guides him, a palm on Phil’s wrist, leads him in silent answer - _yes, of course.  
_

Phil doesn’t think of his own pleasure for a second as he pushes a finger inside. Doesn’t think about how tight Dan is, how he’d feel wrapped around his dick. All he can think about is how Dan feels, all his thoughts consumed with getting Dan to make _that_ noise again. That noise means Phil is doing something right, means Dan is happy, pleased - any other good feeling. 

“Fuck, I can take two.” Phil gives it to him, watches as he stills to adjust. “God.”

  
  
His cock is hard, pressed up against Phil’s t-shirt in a way that’s going to leave a damp patch. Phil has a fleeting thought of never washing the shirt again, then decides to wash the shirt in the morning. He’s not quite sure what he does, crooks his fingers, presses them in exactly right. Because all off a sudden Dan is digging his nails into Phil’s shoulders, letting out a moan that sounds like it belongs in porn. 

  
  
“There, there, there. Fuck. Please. Keep doing that.” 

He wonders if Dan is one of those people who could come purely from this, if he’s _that_ sensitive (porn, again, needs to stop watching it). “Yeah? There?” He purposefully avoids it, the whine he gets in response making him laugh. “Alright, needy.” 

  
  
“Shutup.” He buries his face in Phil’s neck, Phil silently warns him to not leave any marks. He lets out a little huff of a thing, settles for just - tongue. “Can you touch me?”

  
  
“Might be able to, Daniel.”

  
  
“That - did something for me, dunno what. Say it again.” 

“What? Daniel?”

  
  
“Mhm.”

“What do you want, Daniel? Want a third? Or do you want to come? Want my other hand?” He doesn’t think he could do a third in this position, already about one minute away from a hand cramp, but if Dan asks he’ll push through. 

  
  
“Other hand.” Phil ignores him for a moment, instead puts all of his attention into fucking Dan with his fingers, nearly comes in his jeans when Dan starts to meet him, lifts his hips and fucks down onto them. “God. How are you even - god.”

  
  
“M not god. Just fucking touch me, Phil.” And Phil does this time, no teasing involved. Just takes Dan in hand, settles into a rhythm based on the sounds Dan’s making. He’s so fucking vocal, gives Phil all the direction he needs without saying a word. He likes a tighter grip, something a bit faster, a brush of Phil’s thumb over the head on every few upstrokes. 

  
  
It doesn’t take long for Dan to fall apart in his lap, and the bastard does bite down as he comes. Phil hopes it’s low enough to cover, if not he’s going to have to buy a pot of something tomorrow to try and cover it up before Monday. The wet patch is much more than a wet patch, and Dan is limp and heavy in his arms, entire body trembling as he comes back down to earth. After two minutes - “fuck, sorry. I didn’t mean to - it’s like low down. You should be able to wear a button up and it still be alright. Shit.” 

“It’s fine, Dan.” And it is. He strokes his fingers through slightly tangled curls, teases them out. 

  
  
“Are they the fingers that have just been in my arse?” Dan asks, and he can hear the amusement, know he’s not .. angry, annoyed, fine. Just content. 

  
  
“Er - maybe. I have a shower. It’s fine.” 

“Shower, then?”  
  
-

It’s a shower that results in the most spectacular handjob of Phil’s life. 

-

Dan stays. 

Miraculously. 

  
  
Phil thinks it has something to do with the rain outside, it’s picked up even more than before. It’s coming down hard against Phil’s windows, like it could break through if it really wanted to. 

  
  
Then Phil thinks it has something to do with the thunder, Dan jumps out of his skin the first time it happens, pales beyond belief. 

  
  
“Not a fan?” He’s wrapped up in Phil’s university of York hoodie, looking for all the world like he just belongs here. Here in Phil’s bedroom. In Phil’s life. 

“Not really.” He still watches though, fascinated, scared, but never looking away. “It’s just all so loud and unnecessary. Then I suppose I’m a hypocrite for saying that cos, like, same.” He immediately looks like he hadn’t meant to let that last bit slip, face crumples into something Phil can’t pinpoint before returning back to neutral. 

  
  
Phil ignores it, doesn’t have the right to pry even if everything in him wants to, just so he can convince Dan he’s not whatever he thinks he is. He’s - not perfect. No one is. He was wrong earlier to think about putting Dan on a pedestal, no human should be.

Dan is just this imperfect beautiful man that Phil has no right to question, “Do you want a hot chocolate?” 

  
  
“Oh.” He looks shocked, like no one has ever asked him something as nice as that in 29 years. “Please.”  
  
\- 

“I love them.” 

  
  
They’re both wrapped up in Phil’s quilt, watching the lighting. Dan has gotten closer and closer, with every bang, with every flash of light. Now they’re entirely pressed up against each other, each of them holding empty mugs. He feels like he’s getting _too_ much, the rain giving him the gift of Dan for a little while longer. 

  
  
Dan hums, drops his head down onto Phil’s shoulder. “You love loud and unnecessary?” 

  
  
It’s feel like some sort of test, something that if he gets wrong Dan will leave. Thunder storm or not. “You see loud and unnecessary, I see beautiful and endlessly fascinating. Either way, yeah, I love it.”

  
  
It settles something in Dan, he deflates like a balloon, the tension he’d been holding floating out of the window and right into a lighting bolt. 

  
  
Dan could light up the entire night sky, if he really wanted. 

  
  
“I used to force my brother to watch them with me as a kid. I wanted someone else to just appreciate how cool it was. He put up with it until he turned like fifteen, then he told me lighting bolts were dangerous and started showing me articles of people who'd been struck. I sort of found that really cool, too.” Phil remembers staring at people’s backs, the lines, the colours, wishing he could be struck by a lighting bolt, too. 

  
  
He sort of feels like he has been tonight - struck by Dan. 

  
  
“Phil! You can’t just - it’d really fucking hurt. You know that, right? These people probably aren't walking around like cool look at this I was struck my lighting, what a cool and fun experience for me.” He’s tangled their legs together beneath the quilt, done it without Phil even realising. “Do not go chasing storms.”

  
  
“I know! I know.” And he does know, he’d briefly read about it whilst at med school. It wasn’t the most common of things, so he’d searched it out on his own. It really did fucking hurt. “Anyway, I don’t like getting wet. Makes my hands feel funny.”

  
  
“You were just in the shower.”

  
  
“Rain water is different! It’s a different sort of wet.” Phil protests, Dan just turns to the side and kisses his jaw. It’s more intimate than anything else that’d happened tonight, somehow. It’s a dangerous game, the more he talks to Dan tonight the more he’ll miss him when he leaves. He’s always gotten attached to people too easily, it always leaves him feeling sad when they inevitably walk away. 

  
  
“You’re so weird.” And it’s said with such fondness that Phil doesn’t doubt for a second that Dan means it in a I like it way.

I like that you’re so weird. I like that i’m still here. I like that we’re watching a storm together even though this was supposed to be just about sex. 

  
He takes Dan’s mug from him when it all settles down, when the thunder fades into nothingness and the sky stops lighting up.

His room is still as bright as ever, though, Dan is still here. 

“Tired?” He asks, getting up to place the mugs on his dresser and to close the blinds. He can feels Dan’s eyes on him, laughs in his brain when he turns around and Dan closes them like he hasn’t been watching. 

  
  
“Bit.”

  
  
“Sleepy time, then.”

  
  
“Sleepy - for fucks sake.”

  
  
-

He isn’t actually expecting Dan to be gone the next morning. It’s like a punch to the gut, a fight he didn’t even know he was a part of.

  
  
He’s gone, made his side of the bed somehow without waking Phil. The hoodie is neatly folded up at the end of his bed with -a note. 

  
  
Phil scrambles for It, nearly goes flying over the headboard. 

  
  
_Phil,_

_I had to leave, sorry, work thing!  
  
Thanks for last night and the.. fingering. and the steps.  
  
And for making me feel safe.  
  
Dan. _

_xx_

Nothing. No number. No i’ll see you again. Just - nothing. 

  
  
He still puts it into his bedside table drawer anyway. 

-

He has all day to sulk, first Sunday off in weeks and he’s moping about over a man who’d never promised him anything. Dan didn’t owe him a thing. They were both adults, both knew what last night was. 

  
  
Phil is just a sappy romantic fool, sometimes.

He watches buffy, eats too much pizza, orders shit he doesn’t need off slightly dodgy internet websites. 

  
  
He does _not_ think about Dan (if not means thought about him at least twice every five minutes).

The days goes quickly when you’re doing absolutely nothing, before he knows it he’s setting up his too early alarm. 

  
  
Ten years and he’ll never get over how early he has to get up sometimes. In all honesty he prefers the night shift.  
  
-

“New junior doctors today, how’re you feeling about that?” Alice asks, falling into step with him as she passes him a coffee.

  
  
“God, angel. I snoozed one too many times and didn’t have time to stop off for one.” He gulps it down like he’ll die if he doesn’t, some life finally coming back into his brain. 

  
  
“I know, you always do that on a Monday after a Sunday off. We’ve worked together for too long, clearly.” 

  
  
He’s about to respond then he sees something - brown curly hair, a flash of side profile, a man much taller than everyone else around him. 

  
  
“Phil? You look like you just saw a ghost.” She’s snapping her fingers in front of his face, he bats them away with the hand not holding coffee.

  
  
“I’m fine — just thought I saw someone. Wasn’t them, though.” It couldn't be. Dan had said he had a work thing yesterday, but Phil knows for certain that this is the junior doctors first day. Nothing happened here yesterday. 

  
  
Dan could’ve been lying, didn’t owe him the truth. Work could’ve been code for - _just don’t want to be here._

“Oh, they’re the new ones, they look very happy. Don’t know what they’re in for. Woo-hoo the tories.” She lets out a sarcastic little cheer, and Phil snorts. As much as he’d like to get into another rant about how shit the government was, about how if they stripped budgets back anymore Phil was going to have to start making bandages out of his old t-shirts, he had work to do. 

  
  
“We’ll see how they feel by the end of the day, eh?” And he hates that he has to be the one to show them the shit side of things, he wants to be as passionate as the day he started about everything. And he is still passionate, about helping, saving lives, making a difference. It’s getting incredibly difficult, though. 

“Go get em, tiger.”

  
  
“I told you to stop calling me that.”  
  
-

It can’t be.  


  
It is. 

  
  
Dan’s stood in front of him, scrubs on, white coat. Looking every part a new junior doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all know who steps are
> 
> OKKKKKK. i wrote a few one shots to practise how i wanna style this/how i feel about writing smut. And now i'm where i wanna be in regards to writing this! This is from me watching every single goddamn medical show during quarantine and becoming obsessed. the resident was a particular FAV. so dan is a resident (but actually in the uk it's a junior doctor) and phil is.. his mentor, of sorts. HERE WE GOOOOOO. hope you enjoy<3 hopefully it'll be a wild ride. (river rapid style)
> 
> as always, please leave a comment letting me know if you enjoy anythign at all lmao or hate anything. i am pretty new to writing outside of like rps so i like to know if there's literally anything i can to make myself better! (but like don't be espercially ,mean please - which i don't think anyone will anyway - i am a baby) not beta'd so any glaring mistakes - typos, tense changes etc, lemme know!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna follow me on tumblr for updates! ](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)

Phil’s an A&E consultant, has an entire team of people working beneath him.

It wasn’t something he’d been ever been aiming for going into this, had always wanted to become a surgeon. He quickly realised that wasn't for him, it was too invasive and his hands always felt too big for it (they weren’t). That’s just how he felt. Like he’d go into someones stomach and the sheer size of his palm would kill them instantly. It was a fear he hadn’t been able to get over, but that was fine, meant to be - even.

Med school taught him he had a talent for quick diagnosis, the ability to connect the dots in a way other people couldn’t. His brain could just see things - apparently - all of his tutors had told him the right path was emergency medicine.A quick decision _could_ be the thing to save someone, the right decision the thing that _would_. He could hardly so no to that, could he?

So he saw hundreds of people a every day, fixed them up, solved their problems, sent them off to the departments that could give them the correct specialised treatments if needed. It’d been a hell of aslog, a thousand exams, a thousand times proving himself. He’d done it, eventually, two years ago he was given the position and he hadn’t looked back. Couldn’t imagine himself being anywhere else, doing anything else.

He is Phil Lester and he has the ability to be the two minutes of difference that meant life or death.

  
  
He is Phil Lester and he is tripping over his words, failing his usual welcome speech, because Daniel Howell was stood there. Stood there looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. He was staring resolutely at the ground, probably wishing it would open up and swallow him whole. Open up and swallow up everyone in the room if that’s what it took for him to not have to be here.

It wasn’t his most inspiring thing yet but, when it was over, everyone still hurried to crowd around him. Notebooks out, fingers on phones ready to type Phil’s words of wisdom. Not that he had any today, his brain felt like it was leaking out of ears.

They all had questions, they always did, wanted to be the most impressive, wanted to prove they could do this better than everyone else around them. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, not ready to fail but they all would anyway.

Every year he’s in charge of a few junior doctors, gets sent the ones who have been deemed appropriate, who they think will be able to cope.

Cope with the constant, the unexpected, the anger, the feelings that come with losing someone before you’re even able to send them off to be fixed.

Can Dan handle that? Will cuts and bruises - worse things - invoke the same reaction as thunder and lighting?

Speaking of Dan, he was the only outside of the circle, looking just about ready to bolt out of the door. 

He does.

  
  
Not bolt. But he leaves. Slinks around the door and disappears just like he had on Sunday morning. 

  
  
Where’s he going? Phil’s not even given them a task yet, told them where to go. Hospitals were big places, he was going to end up in the wrong department, spend all day being an accidental Obstetrician -He was 99% sure Dan had never assisted in childbirth.

He wants to call him back, but the words get stuck in his throat so he tries new words instead - answers all the questions being aimed his way.

“There’s only so much I can tell you, you have to get out there and see what it’s like.” It’s a Monday, hopefully not too eventful. It was the weekends you had to look out for, the drunken head wounds, the dangerous driving. “You’re going to be thrown in at the deep end, by the end of the day some of you will wonder if it’s even worth it. It will be. One day you'll do something, save someone, and it’ll all click. Now go out there and do your best, because maybe today will be that day.”

-

“You and curly top not getting along? I know your welcome speech can be a bit crushing, but - did you, like, threaten to kill him?” 

_Dan._

“Yeah, Alice, I threatened to kill all of them. I accidentally did the welcome speech for my murder maze, not the welcome to A&E speech.” He deadpans, getting a jab right to the side. She’s the perfect height to inflict maximum pain on Phil, always right in the rib. “One day you’re gonna do that too hard and you’ll have to nurse me back to health.”

  
  
“Good job i’m your best nurse, then - favourite nurse.” She smiles, and she means it. Phil doesn’t play favourites, is what he always claims, but she just knows. Maybe Phil picks her too often, gives her more responsibility than the others, but he can’t help it when she’s so good at what she does. Also she knows all the gossip; Phil loves gossip. “Also, don’t deflect. What’d you do? He went and asked for a new senior consultant.”

  
  
That makes Phil freeze in his tracks, heart sinking down into his shoes. Alice goes on nattering to herself before she realises they’re no longer walking in sync. “Phil? You alright?”

“Did they give him one?” He catches up, hands buried deep in his pockets to disguise the fact they’re shaking - just a little bit. He can’t have screwed up _that_ badly. 

  
  
“Oh, no, all the other spots are filled up. He’s stuck with you, fearing murder. Poor sod.” She’s unaware, obviously, thinks Dan is just some dramatic bloke who’s taken one look at the work, has gotten spooked, has made a run for it. 

  
  
But he’d sat there and watched the lighting, watched it even though he was terrified of it.

“Right.” He finally manages, quiet and - stupid. “I’ll have to have a word.” When he can find him, _if_ he can find him.

  
  
“Please do. Also, your favourite patient is in bay 5. Won’t take anyone but you, you hunk of a man.” She’s teasing, always does, Phil’s sure all her energy comes from trying to wind him up.

“She’s 70! Plus she’s trying to set me up with her granddaughter, not herself.” It’s been a year of ‘no, sorry’. A year of her trying again the next time anyway. He hasn’t told her why - _i’m gay, sorry._ He’s avoided telling any of his patients, after the first time, doesn’t think he can handle the quick turn of a smile into a frown, the shoulders coming up defensively. He knows the world has progressed, but there are still people who are a hundred years behind.

“Tell her if you were straightly available, I would’ve had you a long time ago.” She winks, gives him a little push forward before disappearing behind the desk. 

  
  
Straightly available. Phil hates her. Loves her. Whatever. 

-

He isn’t a GP, isn’t someone people can request, but she still does. He goes every time, because sometimes she makes him these chocolate biscuits that he can’t seem to replicate, can’t seem to buy anywhere else on planet earth.

“Margaret! Back again, did you miss me?” He falls easily into the stool beside her bed, graceful after many years of practise. Once he’d missed it entirely, just barely caught the edge, and it’d rolled away from him. Sat on his arse in front of someone who’d needed stitches, they’d immediately requested someone else. Phil remembers thinking - _fair enough._

“Oh, Philip, you look - you look.” She looks like she wants to say something offensive, but in a nice way. “Tired.”

  
  
“I obviously need to go and get some more coffee after this, then.” He smiles brightly, he always has time for Margaret - even if she is insulting him.

Politely insulting him. 

  
  
She’s a hypochondriac, more trips to the hospital than Phil has years of being alive. It’s a good job the NHS is free, otherwise she’d have been bankrupt about five times over.

  
  
“Yes, with a biscuit.” She’s marvellously good at looking mischievous, even when she’s giving Phil something nice. He’s got about three thousand Tupperware boxes at home, she always says she doesn’t need it back, that Phil should used one to pack a big lunch because - _“you look so skinny sometimes, you’re a growing boy! Eat all these ones for yourself. No sharing.”_

“You do spoil me, Margaret.” He puts a hand to his heart, delights in the way in makes her giggle. 

  
  
“My son and his boyfriend tried to eat them this morning! The cheek of it. They know I bake these ones especially for my favourite doctor. I tell them about you all the time!”

  
  
_Oh._ Son and his boyfriend. 

  
  
She’s still talking. 

  
  
“- and then I was telling my daughter, you know, Amy. The one who I think you would be rather well sui-“

“Margaret, I’m gay.”

“Oh! Oh.” She frowns, but it’s not one of the usual frowns. It’s more of a i’m disappointed in myself frown. “Goodness. I’m sorry. My son already has a boyfriend, it’s recent, too! If you’d have told me sooner I'm sure I could’ve set something up.” Phil’s positive her son is nearing fifty, if not already there. 

  
  
He laughs, a proper laugh, a tongue sneaking out between his teeth laugh. “You totally missed out on the chance to have a doctor-in-law son.” He pauses. “No, that was wrong… wrong way around. You know what I meant.”

  
  
“You’re smart, Philip, but also sometimes I think there’s little goblins in your brain pushing buttons to make you say the silliest things.” It’s kind, she has a hand on his cheek and she gives it a pat before dropping it down so she can show him her problem. 

There’s a rash up her arm, immediately identifiable to anyone who’s ever been a child and ran through a woods, a field - anywhere. 

  
  
Sometimes he wonders how she actually gets through into this department, who has she got charmed at reception? Is she baking biscuits for people who aren’t him? The thought is almost heartbreaking.

  
  
“Have you been gardening again?”

  
  
“Oh! Yes, yesterday, how did you know?” She looks genuinely shocked, like Phil has powers. He wishes he had powers, maybe then he could magic some sleep into himself. 

  
  
“This is from stingy-nettles.” 

“Oh.” She hums, “well, look at that. You’re probably right. I was letting my garden get a little bit wild, they probably got through whilst I wasn’t looking. Pesky things.”

  
  
“I don’t have any dock leaves on hand to give you.” He teases, but he’s already writing her a prescription for some cream to stop the inflammation. “Do you think maybe you’ll have some of those, too?”

  
  
“That’s an old wives tale, are you a doctor from the 1800’s? Do you need me to tell the goblins to behave?” She’s grinning, so big you can barely see her eyes anymore. He loves this, when he gets to sit down with a patient and just speak.

  
  
“Is not! It works. I used to do it as a kid.” He gives her the paper, sends her on her way. 

She peaks her head back around to offer one last word, one last sentence. “You know, I think I have a gay nephew. I’ll ask him for you.” 

-

He bumps into Dan in the end, by complete accident, in the locker room. It’s three hours later. It’s been more than a busy morning in A&E, he’s changing shirt because right now he's more sweat than he is man. 

  
  
Dan’s quick to leap to his feet, make his second great escape of the day.

This time Phil doesn’t let him, catches him by a white sleeve. “Dan. Talk to me?”

“I am.” It’s a start, he supposes. Bit blunt, but, what did he expect?

He blurts it out before he’s had the chance to consult himself, “Do you have.. a partner? Is that why-“

“No, fucking hell. Do I look like an adulterer to you?” He’s posh, posher. Like he's making an effort to sound unbothered, even though his words are very bothered. Any of the softness has gone, left is just - this. 

  
  
“No. I suppose not, an adulterer would be more interested in keeping their secrets, not singing steps on some.. steps.” He finally, finally, gets a smile. It’s small, nowhere near as bright as the thing he’d gotten Saturday night, barely a hint of dimple, barely a smile at all. A hint of a smile. Something at least. 

“I’m just being professional.”

  
  
“Dan, this doesn’t have to be all awkward and horrible for us. It’s not uncommon for people to have slept with other people here, believe me. You should see the Christmas parties. You come in single and you’re basically sleeping with a colleague within the space of six months.” It’s an admission, of sorts, he’s sure Dan can piece together that he’d gone and done exactly that. “It’s just a thing. It’s high tension, high emotions, and you share all that with your colleagues. It’s just… you know. Normal. Not saying people are fucking in storage closets, or anything, just that a lot of couples exist here.”

  
  
Dan nods, offers nothing else, none of his own commentary. 

  
  
“Like, god, the head of surgery and the head of intensivecare are married now. You can fall in love here. Not that we’re - you know.” He bites his tongue, not that that’s ever stopped him from saying too much. “I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be like it. I get that you weren’t expecting this on your first day, but it’s all..peachy.”

  
  
“Peachy?” Dan raises an eyebrow, it’s the exact look he’d gotten on the Saturday night. In a bar that seems a million years away now. It makes his brain scream loud and demanding and - _ask him_.

Ask him why he lied in his note, why he ran. He doesn’t, though. That’s really none of his business. He doesn’t owe him anything, so he doesn’t ask. He wonders if that’s what Dan’s thinking about, that Phil _knows_.  


He can have all these normal, selfish human thoughts as long as he keeps them all trapped inside his own brain.

“Yeah, or any other fruit you fancy.” 

“I’m not sexually attracted to fruit.” Dan shrugs, but he’s got a banana in his hand and it’s all a bit confusing. 

  
  
“Lunch, then? Not doing anything else with that?” He nods towards it. Dan huffs this little thing of a sound, the noise he’d made into Phil’s neck. 

“Just a snack.” 

“Oh. Good snack choice, it has lots of electrolytes. And - er - can reduce the risk of strokes, apparently.” It’s painful, if anyone was listening to this they might slap Phil round the back of the head. 

“Cool, was worried about stroking out halfway through my first day.” He wants the hole to swallow him up again, thats’s what _that_ expression is.

Daniel Howells ‘black hole please save me now’ expression.

  
“It doesn’t have to be weird, yeah? We can just be friends” Dan’s face crumples at that, and Phil doesn’t understand _why._

“Ok, yeah, sure. I have to go, I have something to do.” And Phil wants to tell him no, you don’t. I’m your superior, i’m telling you what to do today and I haven’t given you anything. Say I _want_ to go, not I _have_ to go. But it’s Dan’s first day, and it’s probably a world away from what he excepted, so Phil decides to give him some leeway. He steps back, let’s Dan leave.

  
  
Phil watches him as he walks away. It’s a sure walk, confident, long strides that would make you think he’s capable of taking on the entire world. It’s the complete opposite to all the nervous energy he’d just been emitting, the opposite to how he’d walked through Phil’s flat.

He keeps trying to think back, to try and scramble for some information, for a sign that he’d done anything wrong that night. He was sure he’d only had one drink before speaking to Dan, but maybe he’d miscounted and actually he’d had five. Or maybe the one drink had an alcohol volume of like - god - 1000. He’d said something insane without realising, had proposed by accident.  


Dan had seemed comfortable, though. Like he’d had a good time. They’d laughed, had hotchocolate together.Phil couldn’t work it out. It was awkward, of course it was going to be initially, but he still didn’t quite get it. Dan was being overly stand-offish with him, skipped three hours of his shift just to avoid saying hello. 

  
  
He wants to explain to him, sit him down and tell him he’s not expecting anything. Maybe that was it, maybe Phil had given off a vibe. A vibe that he wanted more, wanted it to extend beyond a one night stand. Christ. What if Dan could read minds? Had heard Phil’s future plans whilst in the taxi, the ones about Dan moving in and the breakfast bar - he might throw up if he keeps thinking. 

He wonders if Dan would’ve stayed if not for the storm, if his plan had been to run the moment it was over and the lighting was just a spanner in the works.

It doesn’t matter. They’re both here to do an incredibly important job, and for that to work they’re going to have to get along. Fallouts in a place like this just don’t end well. 

He doesn’t even want _anything_. Just for Dan to speak to him, to be someone he can work with, he sees far too much potential, despite everything,to let it all be ruined by the fact they’d seen each other naked. 

  
He sighs, gets changed, leaves the locker room with a plastered on smile. 

_-_

He joins Alice for lunch, and immediately he’s busted. 

“What’s the story then, Lester?”

  
  
“There isn’t a story.”

  
  
“Don’t lie to me. You can tell me you don’t want to tell me the story, but don’t treat me like an idiot by telling me there isn’t one.” Sometimes Phil thinks Alice could kill him with just a look, turn him into stone. 

  
  
“Fine.” He sighs. “Right-“ 

So he tells her, leaving out the bits that are personal to Dan. Dan’s business isn’t his to tell, but he can spill out his own feelings, use them as a condiment for his rather lack-lustre lunch. Salad with a drizzle of pining.

He doesn’t know why he went for salad, anyway, something about trying to lower his salt intake after his last blood pressure test came back a little bit dodgy. 

“God.”

  
  
“And i’m not even - i’m not one of those dickheads who’s going to keep pursuing someone even when they’ve made it clear that they don’t want something, you know? Maybe i’ll have a little sulk when he’s not looking, but nothing - I'd never make him uncomfortable. I get it, it’s fine, but I just need him to work with me. Literally work with me.” He squeezes his cheeks together, doing a brilliant impression of a fish. “I don’t know how to tell him any of that, though, cos I feel if I even make reference to that night he’ll run for the hills.” 

Alice pushes the salad aside, replaces is it with her plate of chips. They both pick at it, the salty goodness is all Phil needs right now. “I think you just have to tell him straight up. He’s twenty nine, he’s here to be a fully-fledged doctor, he has to be mature about things.” 

  
  
“Maybe.” He sighs, “but then maybe I don’t say anything at all? Just never mention it so he knows it’s not a big deal, that I haven’t been thinking about it.” 

  
  
“But you have been thinking about it.” She points out, “and that’s fine. It’s rare for you to even do that, he must’ve really caught your eye.”

  
  
“You’ve seen him, pretty beyond belief.” But not just that, he’d been funny and charming and hadn’t found Phil weird in the way most people find him weird. He was a lighting bolt and Phil has spent the last few days feeling electrocuted. “I’ll talk to him. Maybe.” 

  
  
“You know you have to, things can go wrong here if there isn’t communication. Remember Barry and Sam? That was one operation that no one ever likes to think about. All over a fucking football team, too.” She lets Phil have the last chip, clearly because she feels sorry for him. Phil has zero pride and happily takes it. 

“Yeah, you're right, stop doing that.” He slouches in his chair, fiddles with his name badge. “I’m not stupid enough to be like he’s the one, not based off a one night stand, but it did feel - different.”

  
  
“Like I said, you rarely do it. Probably forgot how it felt.” 

  
  
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m just being dramatic cos it’s the first time i’ve been laid in a year.” That has to be it, love at first sight just isn’t a thing. Not that he thinks it was love, just - something. 

-

It isn’t a breakthrough - the smile that barely existed. 

Dan makes an appearance half an hour later, Phil takes it upon himself to observe.

He gives him his first instruction, his first task of the day. It’s something he’d usually pass on to the nurses, but he strongly believes every doctor should have some experience in the basics. “Bay 4. Someone’s stood on a rusty nail, need a tetanus shot. Think you can manage?”

  
  
And he manages. He’d steady, gentle, calm under pressure even though the patient has a huge phobia of needles and looks ready to kick Dan in the head at any moment.

  
  
He finds a vein seemingly without even trying, it’s over in a second. He holds some cotton wool against her skin for the bleeding, then pops on a plaster.

  
  
Phil follows him out through the curtain, “good job. But maybe less of the attitude next time? Or less of the - nothing. Do something, say something. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere else but in there, patients tend to be calmer if you speak to them.”

  
  
“Noted.” _  
_

_-_

_“_ You found him, then. Gonna be a good one, him.” Mark pats him the back, always does it in a way that’s too hard. He’s the definition of someone who doesn’t know his own strength. 

“Found who?”

  
  
“Dan! He looked lost earlier, he ended up with me for a few hours. Never seen anyone stitch on the first day like that, no shakes in sight.” 

  
  
“He was— right. Yeah. Good.” And Phil feels guilty now, thought Dan had been slacking all morning when he’s probably be doing more than any of the others. “I think he has x-ray vision, but for veins.” 

  
  
“Ha! Maybe. Be careful, might have to poach him off you.” He throws a wink Phil’s way before disappearing. 

-

He catches up with Dan as they’re both on their way out, wants to slap him on the back like Mark does, wants to be normal and not weird and just say something but it’s a struggle.  


He almost - almost - ruffles his hair, stops himself at the last minute and instead squeezes his shoulder. It’s still not the best thing he could’ve done, but it’s not touching someone’s hair at work. “Great work today, Dan.”

  
  
“Right. Thanks.” And he says it with all the enthusiasm of someone who’s just been told they’ve got gonorrhoea. 

“Mark thinks so, too. You’ve impressed a few people today.” And he shouldn’t have said that, because now he knows Mark would have him in a heartbeat if a spot ever opened up. He’s selfish right now, wants to keep Dan under his own wing. Wants to see what else he can do. Wants - something. “Do you want -“

_a lift._

“Oh, Cool.” Dan puts his headphones on, the universal sign for _I do not want to talk to you right now_. His heart is back in his shoes again, it’s a struggle to walk to the car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you would like to reblog on tumblr, i do appreciate it very much!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/627933509821005824/night-shift-please)
> 
> 1\. dan has a reason 2. i promise it won't be like this for long :P this is what I meant by back to stranger in the tags 
> 
> 3\. er i have no medical qualifications, what so EVER. i have a degree in economics.... woohoo.... i chose death 4 four years. so i am doing lots of googling but i'm aware this won't be 100% accurate, but i'm trying to keep it a least semi-realistic. IF anything seems like crazy please point it out though so i can fix it! despite having lived in england my entire life i've only been to hospital once so i don't know the ins and outs and google doesn't do that much in way of specifics. all the medical shows i've watched have been american so sorry if this like goes a bit out of the NHS realm. BUT my hatred of the tories is all accurate luvs x
> 
> hope you enjoyed :) as ALWAYS let me know what u think i enjoy comments ... very sexy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: car crash aftermath, blood, vomit, panic attacks

Dan takes his advice onboard, all of it, without question. They still don’t speak, but Dan listens.

And sometimes he offers more than a handful of words, reveals something he clearly hadn’t meant to and scurries off before Phil can reply. He’s found out more about Dan accidentally than he has on purpose, Phil still keeps them all tucked away in his mind. 

_“Ugh, the fucking bus this morning. I need to buy a car”._

Has a drivers license.

_“Can someone tell James Manchester university is actually part of the Russell Group.”_

Went to school in Manchester. 

  
  
_“Some Mcdonalds chicken nuggets would really do it for me right now, sometimes being a vegan..”_

_  
  
_Obvious point there, Dan is a vegan.

_“I don’t think i’d shove a lightbulb up my arse if you paid me.”_

_  
  
_And that had come after a patient who’d done just that. It was surprising how many people got admitted for inserting things in their anal cavity - things that definitely _aren’t_ supposed to be there.

He’ll never bring them up, never mention anything Dan hadn’t meant to mention himself. That would be unfair - or something.

Mostly Phil observes, observes him in the way he does all of the other doctors.

He starts speaking to his patients, and he’s good, good at all of it. 

  
  
Phil overhears him one day, sat with a little boy who’d missed his football and had instead accidentally kicked the curb. 

  
  
_“Oh my goodness.” He gasps, all dramatic with a hand to his heart. “You kicked an entire curb and you’re still smiling? You’re very brave, I think I need some of that braveness.”_

_“Yes.”He agrees, glancing towards his mum as if to say - look, see. “We can share, if you like.” And he’s digging through his pockets, pulling out what looks to be a pebble. Or a rock. Something like that._

_  
  
“Hold out your hand.” _

_  
  
Dan does as he’s told, palm facing upwards for the boy to gently press the pebble - rock, or something - in to. “If you ever need to be extra brave you just have to give it a little pet.” _

_  
  
“Ah, I see.” Dan nods, “I feel very special. It’s very nice of you to share your braveness, I think you might be brave enough without this. Now you’re just helping out us little guys. That’s really is very kind of you, thankyou. I’ll keep it in my pocket, always there when I need it.” _

_The little boy puffs out his chest, looking rather proud of himself. “It’s brave to be kind to people.”_

It goes on like that for two and a half weeks, it drives Phil up the wall. Not because of himself, but because of how often he sees Dan alone. Outside of patients he always just seems to be stood somewhere, staring down as his phone with a pinched expression like he doesn’t actually want to be seeing whatever he’s looking at. 

Phil hates that he’s closed himself off quite so much. He wouldn’t mind if it was just him Dan wasn’t speaking to, but it appears to be everyone. He wants to tell him he needs that interaction, that shared-experience sort of conversation you can’t have with anyone else outside of the hospital. He needs the relief that comes with knowing you’re not the only one who feels tired, overwhelmed, over-worked. He’s stewing in it all alone, a big messy pile of emotions plonked inside his own head. 

-

Surprisingly theres’ been nothing major, nothing massive, newsworthy (he thinks anal cavity accidents should be, but). He’s had to face a few of those over the years, gone outside to press asking questions that were far too personal. He hates it, makes his skin feel itchy. The last thing he wants is to  get held up by journalists who aren’t asking him questions for the right reasons, he just wants to do his job. 

It happens today. The major. The massive. 

The newsworthy. 

“Phil, we’ve got three critical and two minor incoming. Car crash, other car has been sentthe other side of the city. They collided head on, someone’s ended up entering the motorway the complete wrong way.” 

Being in London meant they were close enough to other hospitals to split major incidents, to give the victims the best chance of survival. One doctor could only go so far, no matter how badly people need them to stretch. 

He was good at this, at barking out orders, at directing everyone to where they needed to be. He took Dan, Ain - another junior - along with him to a trauma bay. Sent the rest off to other doctors on the department, to his nurses - because they really could teach them all a thing or two.

“Someone page Mark, tell him he’s bound to have incomings soon. Major car crashes always result in at least one needed surgery.” 

  
  
“Got it. First one coming in.. now.”

  
  
The doors slam against the wall as a bed is pushed through, a man with metal sticking out of places metal should not be sticking out of.Covered in blood, undoubtedly unconscious. “Right. You two, with me.” 

“Stats? Good? Bad? Talk to me.” They were cutting through his jeans, t-shirt, everything he’d been wearing now in shreds and on the floor.

There was so much blood Phil could barely see. Internal, external, and Phil was sure there was somehow a third type of bleeding no one else had ever even discovered. 

  
  
“He’s crashing— Phil, we might have to- yes, someone charge.” 

  
  
Then there were two pads pressed against his chest, desperately trying to shock the life back into him. 

The beep of the heart-rate monitor was always a relief, always a— “He needs blood, now. Someone update Mark, he’s going to have to be prepped and sent upstairs ASAP.”

“Can every—“ He looks at Dan for the first time since entering the room. He was pale, eyes wide, and up to now it seemed as though nothing had phased him, that he was immune to all the nerves that came with your first job in an actual hospital. 

  
  
He was going to be sick, or he was going to - panic attack.

“Right. Does everyone know what they’ve got to do in here?”

  
He get a chorus of yes. Ain seems interested in standing back and watching, barely pays attention when Phil leads Dan out of the room with a gentle hand to the small of his back.

  
  
The nearest bit of anything private was his office, he pushes him inside and - christ - Phil could swear blind that he hasn’t seen him breathe in the last minute. 

  
  
He places both hands on either side of Dan’s face, he stares back for the first time in nearly three weeks. Stares back like Phil’s his focal point, if he stops looking he’ll just collapse into nothingness.

  
  
“Dan, I need you to breath out for me, ok? Just slowly - yeah? Breathe out for me.” It takes five seconds, then Dan is letting out a long, gasping thing. His hands suddenly flying up to cover Phil’s, nails digging into his skin so hard that Phil imagines the indents will stay there for hours. That doesn’t matter, though, because Dan’s breathing and - it’s too fast now. 

  
  
He is working himself up, his forehead is damp with sweat and Phil knows that this will become the moment Dan will never forget. He'll remember years down the line when he's more qualified, a lot more equipped to deal with what had just come through the doors. “Dan, look at me.” Because he's staring still, but it's not at Phil anymore, it's straight through him. Off to a place he needed to leave. 

His gaze comes back into focus, and now he was properly looking. Phil felt like he was under a microscope, that Dan could see all his deepest darkest thoughts. “Ok, good, good. Now copy me, ok? In and out like me, just copy what i’m doing, Dan.” 

It eventually evens out into something Phil considers normal range, some of the colour returns to his skin. Phil can feel the heat emitting from his red cheeks when Dan realises they’re holding hands in the weirdest way possible. He quickly drops them back down to his side, Phil following soon after. “You ok?”  


“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Yeah, thankyou.”

  
  
“Do you want to sit for a bit? My office is usually empty, you can stay.” He tips his head towards his desk chair, Dan shakes his head and Phil finds himself unsurprised.

  
  
“no, it’s fine. Can I go — the minor patients?”

  
  
“Yeah, of course. Bay three, or bay seven. Just tell whoever’s there than I sent you.” 

-

It’s the day after the car crash, he’s talking to one of his new juniors. 

  
  
“James, you can’t be given a given a surgery just yet, have you even used a scalpel on a human being?” He’s one of the ones who’ve come from money, thinks that should give him the edge, that he should be allowed to run reckless with human lives just because his Daddy can pay the damages if the hospital gets sued. 

  
  
“I practiced in the mortuary.” He looks two seconds away from stamping his feet, throwing a tantrum in the middle of Phil’s reception.

  
  
“James-“

  
  
“Phil, can I borrow you?”

  
  
It’s a new voice, a voice coming to save him from this conversation. 

  
  
It’s also Dan. He’s jerking his head in direction of the locker room. 

“I’ll meet you there in a sec, alright?”

  
As much as he’d love to cut this conversation off midway, tell James to stick his pretentious arguments up his arse, he can’t because then he really would be accused of playing favourites. The hassle with HR isn’t worth it. He wraps it up with a promise of speaking to Mark, if he really wants to be surgeon that badly he’ll be best off under his mentorship. He really hopes it comes through, someones dropped out of Marks program and there’s a spot, anything to not have to listen to the jumped up little snot-nose. 

“He’s such a dick.” Dan’s sat on one of the benches right in front of the lockers, Phil sits opposite him even though the gap is so small that their knees nearly touch. 

“Hm? Who?”

  
  
“James. He thinks cos he went to one of the better schools he can act like everyone is beneath him, the twat.”

  
  
“Oh, yeah. He was just asking me about doing actual surgery, like he’s been here for three hundred years and not three weeks.” And he probably shouldn’t have said that, gossip about one junior doctor to another. Again, HR isn’t worth it. 

  
  
“Idiot. Can you kick him out? Give him to someone else.” And Dan’s just saying exactly what he’s been thinking all day, he’s also saying more on purpose words to him than he has in weeks and Phil doesn’t know what thing to focus on. “I just wanted to say thanks, for yesterday.”

“Don’t mention it, what i’m here for.” He smiles,and he means it. He remembers what it was like at the beginning, just how much destruction you were suddenly seeing. It was a shock to the system, realising the world can be so cruel. “The first time I had a major incident like that I took one look and just threw up in the corner of the room.”  
  


“Rank.” Dan screws up his face, it’s all very cute. 

“Mhm. Isn’t it just. And last year one of my new juniors wasn’t paying attention, slipped over in a puddle of blood and ended up having to stay in overnight for observation. So, in the grand scheme of things, you’re alright.”

“Good to know i’m just below passing out in a pool of not my blood.” He pauses then, seems to be bracing himself for whatever comes next. “About.. Saturday.”

  
  
“Dan, we really don’t have to-“

It doesn’t matter what Phil thinks, because Dan’s holding up a hand to silence him and Phil closes his mouth like the eager to please puppy he is.

  
  
“Do you think if you force yourself to change - to act like someone you’re not - always, constantly, that it’s a bit like murder. Like you’re stood over your own corpse, in a body that isn’t properly yours anymore, because it doesn’t belong to what you’ve made yourself become, you’re just stood there looking down and the murder weapon is your brain.” It’s rhetorical, Dan barely giving himself the chance to breathe before he's speaking again.  


He imagines a game of Cluedo. _I suggest that the crime was committed in the Drawing room, by Mr. Howell with his brain._

  
Phil wants to say something, something big and world changing and - anything. He wonders if when he gets home his apartment will be a crime scene, taped up in yellow, police officers dusting for fingerprints and asking him _who done it_? - _You_? He thinks that maybe Dan will be a body on his stairs, but also stood here reassuring children in a hospital - occupying all the space in Phil’s brain. 

Saturday Dan and the Dan stood in front of him aren’t two separate people, and he needs to shake himself out of that thought process. They’re the same, the exact same. They’re letting things slip they hadn’t necessarily meant to, he's Dan and Phil’s a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of his own need to just - be beside him. 

“I’m not out, not really. Maybe like three people in my actual life know, I suppose four now.”Dan tips his head back against the lockers, the noise it creates makes Phil wince. There’s all sorts of things in his brain, medical things, things that involve not smacking your head against hard surfaces, how to treat concussion, how to - he doesn’t know what to do right now. “That’s shit, isn’t it? Twenty-fucking-nine and i’m still fucking just.. hiding.”

  
  
“No, Dan.” Phil butts in then, even if he’s not meant to. Because Dan has to know, has to hear it from someone, something, that isn’t just a section of his own brain. “There’s in no way a time limit on coming out. You’re not hiding, that isn’t how that works.”

  
  
Dan doesn’t look at him, but he does slouch further down, does let their knees knock together.

“I had a boyfriend, few years back. We met at med school and became something in the last year. He was fine at first, he got it, I think. He was out to everyone, though, loud and proud and the complete opposite of me who couldn’t even admit to - anything.” He tips his head forward, stares at Phil for a few seconds like he’s trying to gauge what he’s thinking, if he’s thinking anything nasty, cruel, if he’s going to accept that Dan is how he is or if he’s going to ask him to change. 

“And like then he started asking me when I was going to tell people, when we could meet my friends back home, when we could just.. be.” His eyes travel over to the window, it was raining again and it seemed fitting, atmospheric for such grand moment. 

  
  
“I get it.” Phil murmurs, just to fill the silence. It’s nothing much, nothing that’d win a prize because it was three fucking words in a voice that sounded strained and crap and - not enough. 

  
  
“It got more and more, and I felt like he was fucking - god. Like he was saying if you come out to all the homophobes in your life then it’llmake me feel really happy. He wasn’t - didn’t mean it like that. I think he just wanted to be able to hold my hand in the street, to tell his family he was seeing someone. To not have to sleep in separate rooms whenever someone was over cos I was terrified of someone catching us out.” He’s picking at a loose thread, Phil wants to tell him to stop and use some scissors instead cos it’s going to ruin the material, it’s going to bunch and look - meh. 

  
  
“So we broke up. That was four years ago.” He stops picking, lets this white piece of thread just hang. Phil’s itching to rip it away and he doesn’t know why. “So I think - you. Just walkinginto here and seeing you was a fucking lot for me. Everything in my brain was going insane, begging me to just run away. Leave the hospital. Go to fucking Iceland and become like a sheep farmer, no one will no who I am, the sheeps will keep my secrets.” He laughs then, the first laugh Phil’s heard in weeks. 

“You’re not a vet, stay here.”

“I’m going to stay here, Phil.” 

“Good.”

  
  
“So, yeah.” He pulls his knees away, up to his chest on a bench that is a bit too small for it to be in anyway comfortable. “When I saw you I was just like well - fuck.” 

  
  
“You know I’m really not like expecting anything, yeah? I meant it when I said I’d like to be friends, though, because it’s much easier to be here when you’re friends with people.”

“I know, I know. It wasn’t you. It was me. I’m one of those people, wear all my feelings on my face. I have to make a proper conscious effort to not, to stop everything just being there for everyone to see. Like you can tell when I hate something, when i’m annoyed, deliriously happy.” He pushes his face in-between his knees, lets out a deep shaking breath. “And you can also tell when i’m like - when i’m into someone, or whatever, want someone to fuck me. And I feel like i’d look like that around you.” 

Oh.

Well.  


Phil doesn’t know what to say. He’s spent weeks convincing himself he was just someone Dan regrets. He doesn’t know what to do with this new information, just takes it, holds it gently in his hands. “Dan.”  


  
“I want to come out, I think, I know, but on my own. I don’t want everyone here stood around gossiping about Phil and that new bloke, how I follow you around with stars in my fucking eyes. I don’t want to come out and for people to be like - _Oh I already knew_. People think that’s reassuring, nice, whatever, but it’s really fucking not.” He comes out of his little knee cocoon, rosy cheeked and - lovely. “So that’s why i’ve been like i’ve been, that’s why i’ve not even made fucking eye-contact. Because I can’t hide my stupid face and it’s stupid reactions.” 

“I’m not mad, or angry, or whatever you’re thinking right now. Stop looking at me like i’m going to shout at you.” Phil says softly, voice filled with something he can’t quite pinpoint. “This is hard, all of it, I spend so much time thinking about who I should andshouldn’t come out to. Thinking about how people will react and how it could affect - everything. You’re not behind, you’re not a bad person for only having a small circle of people who you trust, who know. You’re protecting yourself, and that’s all anyone can do.” Dan’s knees slip down off the bench, feet hitting the floor and Phil taps the toes of their shoes together. “We’re ok, yeah? You’re ok. If you ever need to speak to me - about anything.”

He thinks Dan doesn’t want to hear much today, he hasn’t come in here looking for fancy words and answers that sound clever but are ultimately useless. Scripted responses. Words that are said just to fill the silence. Platitudes. He’s come in here to say what he needs to say, to give himself the chance to stop feeling so heavy. Phil hopes he feels lighter, that his brain feels more like his own now.

“I know, Phil.”

He’s got his hand in his pocket, moving in a motion that suggests he really had kept the pebble - rock, or something. 

Saturday night Dan and this Dan are the same person. Dan is this messy swirl of emotions, he’s confused, he’s biting words followed by the softest expressions Phil’s ever seen, he’s all contradiction and sharp edges, he’s one person crammed into a body that can barely contain all of his multitudes. 

Dan’s someone Phil was right to not put on a pedestal, because he has a feeling he’d absolutely hate it.

Maybe that’s too much to think after knowing someone for three weeks, maybe it’s Phil realising that love at first sight might exist and he can’t act on it.  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to my hatred of raisins and the tories x

“Hi.”

  
  
“Hello.”

  
  
“Greetings.”

“Salutations.”

“Hej.”

  
  
“Bonjour.”

  
  
“Nǐ hǎo.”

“Hola.”

“Privét.”

  
  
“Guten Tag.”

“Shalom.”

  
  
“Ciao.”

  
  
“Well shit.” Dan huffs. “How the fuck do you know so many? Are you a secret man of the world?”

  
  
“No. You just said all the harder ones and I got all the easy European ones. You literally could’ve said anything next and i’d have believed you.” Phil grins, tongue sticking out, eyes crinkling. The locker room had been a portal to something new, to a world where-in Dan acknowledges his existence.

  
  
“Fucker.” Dan narrows his eyes, leans across the table to swipe the half muffin Phil still has left. He doesn’t mind, some heathen had made it with raisins. He’d discovered them half way through andpulled a face the entire time he was chewing, because, frankly,who asked for someone to put an old leather boot in his breakfast. “This is what you get for both tricking me, and cheating.” 

It’s been a week since Dan spilled his guts out, a week of Dan speaking to him. Actually speaking. Offering up words on purpose.  


“Oh no, not my disgusting raisin muffin that I thought was chocolate chips and feel betrayed by. How ever will I live. Make sure i’m on a do not resuscitate.” He whines, replacing the vile thing with the newspaper someone had left open on the table. Not to eat, though it may actually be nicer. It was on the crossword puzzle, and Phil was nothing if not determined to fill it out. 

“You have the palette of an infant, you know.” Phil ignores him in favour of writing in the little boxes. And maybe he’s not doing it in a way that’s accurate, but he is doing it in a way that’s fun. He doesn’t know the name of the 1830 King of Britain (7 letters), but according to what he’s jotted down it’s _Lesbian_.

“Six letter word for unpleasant, hm.. Daniel.” He makes a grand show of writing it down, big black letters he’s sure can be viewed from space. Or by Dan who’s sat on the other side of the table with too much muffin in his mouth, protesting. 

  
  
“Philip is also six letters, so.” Crumbs spray out as he speaks and Phil shakes his head, dramatic in displaying his absolute disappointment in the filthy scoundrel - not for the crumbs, but for eating raisins. 

“Yes, but i’m very pleasant so that wouldn’t make any sense. Do you not now how crosswords work?” He gets a raisin thrown in his direction, it’s like a knife to the heart. 

They’re often on the same shift, nothing to do with Phil, just someone in rota planning who either loves him or hates him. He can’t quite work out which. 

They’ve settled into an unspoken routine, both turning up twenty minutes before they’re due start to wind each other up in the staff canteen. 

He looks forward to it, but he’ll never tell Dan that. He’ll never tell Dan a lot of things. 

  
  
“You are abhorrent, actually.” 

“Mhm, must be if I’m stuck sitting here with you. Whatever I did it my past life must’ve been awful.” He smiles sweetly, he’s struck this odd sort of balance with Dan. Anything nice is immediately followed up by some sort of insult neither of them really mean, just to disguise the fact they might actually like each other, might actually feel something. “But that’s too many letters, again, do you get crosswords? Do I need to sit you down and read you the rules?”

  
  
He drops the paper back onto the table, Dan immediately spinning it around to his side with a too big hand - Dan probably couldn’t be a surgeon either. 

  
  
He looks befuddled- which is a word Phil thinks should be in a crossword. “Four letter word for happiness? _Anal_. Really, Phil?” 

“Is it not?” 

  
  
“I - yeah. I can’t even argue. I think they were more intending for someone to write glee, though.” Dan pulls a pen out of his pocket, and Phil think he’s going to scribble out the less than PGanswer, replace it with something that won’t offend whoever happens to stumble across the paper next, but instead he’s drawing something crude in the margins. 

  
  
“I feel like we’re going to have to take that entire page with us and burn it.” He stares as Dan draws, eventually there’s a rather detailed phallic looking thing and - “Is that supposed to be me? Me as a dick?”

  
  
It’s stood proudly erect on the page, but right at the head is a quiff of hair coloured neatly in black with a ballpoint pen. 

  
  
“Yeah, penis wigs. I’m thinking of going into it, like a merkin but better cos it’ll give your dick some personality.” He’s also drawing a pair of glasses halfway down the shaft and Phil has to snatch is back because he’s imagining some nightmare scenario in which dicks have eyes. 

“I’m banning you from art. All of it. Forever.” He shoves the paper in his backpack, because no one deserves to ever have to see that. Not even James. 

  
  
“I think it had a unique point of view.” He’s sat leaning on one palm, it pushes up his cheek, makes his left eye crinkly, and Phil thinks he looks a bit like a bulldog puppy. He tells him as such, gets a blunt _fuck off_ in return.

“Why! Bulldog puppies are cute.”

  
  
“Yeah, like, as a dog. The human equivalent is, like, droopy flaps of skin. So you’re saying I have droopy skin flaps, basically.” He’s so indignant about it all that he fails to realise Phil has just - essentially - called him cute. He’s thankful for that, there was a fine line and he was always toeing it, always in danger of crossing too far over. 

  
  
“You do not have flaps.” And Phil realises how it sounds one second later, but it’s too late because Dan is already laughing at him. 

“I don’t, thanks for noticing.” Dan stops sitting how he was sitting, face smoothing back into something non-bulldog puppy-eqsue. Phil sort of misses it. “Three letters word for rodent?”

  
  
Easy. He knows two things in life, how to be a doctor and how to stay up till stupid o’clock googling animals. “Rat!”

“Yeah, thats’s what you are.”

“That doesn’t count, cos it has to be the same amount of letters as my name. Four for Phil. Six for Philip. Whatever.” He explains, even though he’s pretty sure they never established any rules - never actuallyestablished a game. “Like a six letter animal would be.. weasel.”

  
  
“Alright, then you’re a weasel.” Dan shrugs, “what’s first on your weasel agenda today?”

“Hm, obvious, biting you.” He bares his teeth, gnashes them together and it should be embarrassing, but it isn’t, because Dan’s looking at him like he’s fond of all the chaos that goes into making a Phil. 

“I mean - do you have any diseases?”

  
  
“Yeah. Tons. Every disease.”

-

The day passes by in a complete blur. There’s nothing major, but it’s just constant. The waiting rooms seems to be always full, the minute one person leaves another three arrive in their place. They run out of seats, run out of admission forms at some point. He sends someone to go print out more, they come back saying there’s no paper in the printer. Everything is happening, and everything is going wrong.  


  
He barely has time for anything, not even all the piled up paper work he’s been ignoring for a solid week. The only downside of being in charge was all the admin, all the sign offs, all the refusals he has to make due to budget restraints. 

  
  
“Phil, we desperately need-“

  
  
“I know, there’s just no money for it. I’m sorry, I’m trying.” 

He knows how certain things can be fixed, brings it up at every meeting, to every boss, but he’s always met by a firm no. It does something to you mentally, being rejected before you can properly lay out your plan, the second money is mentioned there’s ametaphorical - sometimes physical - door being slammed in his face. 

He separately writes down every death, every medical mistake, that could’ve been prevented if they were just allowed more money. If not every single thing came down to tight purse strings, if lives were valued more than the fucking pound.Maybe one day he’ll send it off to parliament, maybe all the names of all the people who’ve died will prompt them to take the money away from the banks, start taxing the filthy rich. He doubts it though, not with who’s currently in charge of the country. 

He’d been a relatively positive person up to now, the glass half full sort. It only lasted so long, only lasted until you saw too many people needlessly die, then went home and saw aheadline about how Jeff Bezos was a billionaire now. 

It’s exhausting, on top of all the other already exhausting things. 

Paperwork is his least favourite part of the job, but he still wouldn’t trade it, still wouldn’t step down into a less senior role because he thinks the work he does it worth it. He does a lot of good, even if sometimes he wishes he could do better. 

“You look trashed, Phil.” Alice guides him over to a seat, plonks him down into it. He goes without question, shoes feeling like they’re filled with tiny knives that are digging into the soles of his feet. He just needs a minute, that’s all. A nice little minute. “You know you can’t help people when you’re exhausted, have you even taken your lunch break?”  


  
Phil catches sight of the clock, two hours of today left and his stomach suddenly rumbles in protest. All he’s had all day is half a muffin filled with devil grapes, what he wouldn’t give right now for a packet of haribos, some marshmallows, anything he’s been told is bad for him. “No, been busy. Everyone in London is somehow in this hospital today.” 

  
  
“Don’t care. Go. We’ll cope without you for a little while, and you full well know people have no problem with paging you if they’re desperate.” She won’t budge on it, and Phil knows he’ll be frog-marched down the hall if that’s what it takes.  


  
“Fine, fine. But promise me you’ll call me if you need me?”

  
  
“Phil, i’ve been here longer than you, now go.” 

-

Mark’s in the canteen, beckons him over in a way that makes Phil want to ignore him and head off to another table - maybe a completely different room. It’s like when people click their fingers for a waiter in a restaurant. His politeness, as ever, wins over and he finds himself, and his sandwich,sat opposite the Lead surgeon. 

“Heard you’ve got someone new for me.” He’s eating chicken and rice, broccoli on the side. He’s an absolute fitness fanatic, speaks about his personal bests at all opportunities. Once Phil had seen bf% written down on a piece of scrap paper, thought about it meaning Boyfriend percentage for a few seconds before he mentally slapped himself. _You’re a doctor, you know that means body fat._

“Oh, yeah, James. He’s got a great big massive ego, so, a shoo-in for lead surgeon one day.” He and Mark have this weird friendly feud going on, but sometimes he thinks they both mean everything they say - even if they say it with a smile. 

  
  
“You wound me, Philip.” Marks the one. The colleague. The six months in. They'd both ended up absolutely plastered at the Christmas party, ended up back in Phil’s bed. They never speak about it, actually they’ve never once mentioned it, but they both sometimes look at each other like they remember, in fact Marks looking at him now like he might be interested in a second round. 

He’s attractive, in an obvious way. Square jawed, blond hair, perfect teeth. If Dan didn’t exist, Phil might’ve considered it. But he does exist, exists so much that Phil doesn’t even look back at him.  


  
“I’m sure I do.” He’s preoccupied with his sandwich, checking it over for any sneaky ingredients that hadn’t been listed.“He’s very passionate about it, though, keeps asking for any experience I can give.”  


  
“I have a spot. Someone dropped out when they realised a human body is different to one of the cadavers, there’s a lot more room for error when someone is already dead. Don’t know why the keep sending me these squeamish ones.”

“So you’ll take him?” He keeps his face straight, this is his one chance to get rid of him. If he acts with too much glee (four letter word for happiness) then he’ll get suspicious, wonder if Phil’s giving him one of the difficult ones. Which he is, but he doesn’t need to know that, will find out in a few weeks when James is waving around a scalpel claiming he has enough knowledge and skill to lead a heart transplant. 

“I suppose i’ll take him.” Phil doesn’t like that tone, though, he’s going to ask for something in return. Worse he’s not going to ask for anything at all, going to say Phil owes him something in the future. That's always the worst, always waiting for some crazy demand he knows he won’t be able to say no to. “But you owe me one.”

  
  
And there it is, Mark can never just be nice, can never do something unless it benefits him. That’s why it had never gone further than a one night stand, why Phil could barely stand the idea of even mentioning it. 

He takes a deep breath, decides nothing he can ask is worse than rich boy. “Deal.” 

-

“Wanna know something great? The best? Like you’re going to be that four letter word for happiness.”

  
  
“I’m going to be anal?”

  
  
“No!” Phil squawks, glancing around to make sure no one overheard. “Glee. Obviously it’s glee.”

  
  
“Pity.” Dan sighs, sounding all forlorn and - annoying.The connotations are annoying. “What is it, then?”

  
  
He lowers his voice, leans into Dan and feels sort of cool about the whole thing. Like he’s in a spy movie, handing off top secret information. “James. He’s going to work for Mark instead, we’re rid of him.” 

  
  
“Phil.” He whispers back, inclining his head because he always likes to act like he’s an entire ft taller rather than just a couple of inches. “Good. Cos I was about to put myself into a self-induced coma for six months if I had to listen to him speak anymore.” 

“That’s not what the medical equipment is for, Daniel.” They likely look a bit insane, Dan - unneededly -dipping down and Phil stood up on his tip-toes to prove a point. “But, mood.”

“Stand up.”

  
  
“Stand down.”

  
  
They’re at a standstill. Dan’s neck is going to start hurting in a minute, Phil calves are already complaining at the extra effort. 

  
  
“Oi, you two. Couple of gargoyles. You’re putting off the patients, and me.” Alice slaps them both around the head with a file, causes them to both return to the normal, human way of standing. 

  
  
“Sorry.” They both mutter.

  
“I’ll let you off with a warning.” The file used for assault is being pressed into Phil’s chest, something new for the last half an hour. “See if you can work out what’s wrong with this one, he’s got this rash and and no one can narrow it down, think he's going to start getting shouty if one more person tells him something he’s already been told it is. In bay nine, has also been here for about nine hours - probably.”  


  
“You coming with, Dan? See an absolute master in action.” Both Dan and Alice snort at that, which hurts his feelings because it’s definitely a fact, the most true thing on earth. 

“Lead the way.” 

-

“I just break out in this rash all the time, I have no idea why. ” And he’s covered in it, little red bumps that sit on every inch of visible skin. 

“Is it itchy?” Phil asks, lifting his arm and checking for any blisters forming. “Painful?”

  
  
“Itchy, mostly, yeah. Painful sometimes, but not always.” 

  
  
“When did they start?” 

  
“When I was around 13?” According to his chart he’s twenty four now, Phil wonders how many doctors have just stuck some cream in his hands and told him to moisturise. 

  
  
“And does it just appear at random?” Dan’s staring, tilting his head this way and that, trying to come up with something before Phil does - probably. 

  
  
“Yeah. I mean, it definitely always appears after i’ve been to the gym, or gone on a run.” He’s scratching it now, Phil has to gently tell him to stop. 

“I’d suggest heat rash, but i’m sure you’ve been told that a million times before.” That’s the obvious one ruled out, the one he’s sure Alex is sick to the back teeth of hearing. It’s frustrating, something he aims to always avoid, knowing you have something wrong with and someone telling you no, or telling you repeatedly that it’s something it just isn’t. 

  
  
“Try three million. I’ve tried all the stuff for that, everything every doctor has suggested. It doesn’t stop, the itching, the redness, it all just starts again the next day.” 

“Can you recall any other times? Any at all? I know sometimes you don’t even notice things like this appearing, especially when they develop with no itch at all. You just look down and there they suddenly are.” He asks him to roll his t-shirt back down, instead roll up the jogging bottoms he’s wearing. His legs are much the same, Phil thinks all the clothes he’s wearing are comfort thing, that anything more restrictive would drive him up the wall with the need to just scratch. 

  
  
“Sometimes after I get out of the shower, or bath, I can see them happening whilst i’m sat in there. Once it happened on holiday, got out of a swimming pool and was covered. Everyone looked at me like I was fucking contagious, not done it again since.” Phil prods gently at - what he now know - are hives, typically a reaction based rash. 

  
  
“Was it like this this morning?”

  
  
“Na, I took my dog for a walk and when I got back I started itching.” 

  
  
“Alex, this may sound odd, but was it raining?” He has a theory, a theory that’s for something considered rare. During med school he’d spent a lot of time reading up on rare diseases, ended up doing it for fun more than he did for his exams. It came it handy, more than handy. He didn’t like to show off, but he might with Dan in the room. 

“It was, yeah. Am I allergic to the rain or something?” He’s joking, but. 

  
  
“I think you have Aquagenic Urticaria.” 

  
  
“Eh?” And Phil realises that means quite literally nothing, like someone saying ‘in english’ to a hacker in a movie.  
  


“I think you may be allergic to water.”

-

“How the fuck.”

  
  
“Told you that you’d get to see a master in action.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took a bit longer!
> 
> Tw: conversation about a hit and run

There’s something about working the night shift when you're a fan of existing in the dark, something soothing about leaving at seven in the morning when everyone else’s day is just starting off. 

“You moving anytime soon?” Dan’s been with him tonight, keeping him company on his rounds, being a general nuisance during lunch breaks. The last few weeks had been Dan-centric, they were a bit like peter pan and his shadow, Alice had noticed and relentlessly teased him about it.

  
“I’m enjoying the sunrise, let me have a second.” He comes incredibly close, and for one heart stopping moment Phil thinks Dan’s actually going to wrap his arms around his waist. He stops short of that though, stood behind him in the way he loves to do - two extra inches of height really aren’t _that_ impressive. 

“It’s been a second.”

“Mhm.”

  
  
“What’re you doing now?”

  
  
“I’m going to Tesco. It’s like literally the dream time to shop, Dan. The shelves are freshly stocked and there’s barely anyone in there, I love my seven am no need for human interaction weekly shops.” He tips his head back, it’s dangerously close to resting on Dan’s chest, dangerously close to being a moment. 

“Oh.” Dan murmurs, staring down at him with amusement, with too much fondness, with his stupid beautiful face. That’s the issue, Phil thinks, Dan is properly attractive. Not oh he’s alright for a one night stand, I suppose I can take him home. He’s oh god, if I met him randomly in the street i’d probably give him all my money just for being so beautiful. “Can I come?”

  
  
“If you want.” Bit domestic, he wants to say. Food shopping seems more intimate than having his fingers buried in Dan’s arse, weirdly enough. The thought of being seen beneath the harsh lights of a supermarket, of being watched whilst you pick out your favourite cereal all seems like a lot - something about being perceived and the vulnerability that accompanies it.

Will Dan judge him if he doesn’t put enough vegetables in, or if he puts in too many packets of sweets, what if he disagrees with Phil’s last minute purchases when he’s at the checkout? He’s an absolute dream for shops when it comes to that, if he sees something shiny/sugary at the till - set up in a way to literally tempt him into buying it - he _will_ put it in his trolley. 

“I think I have half a bottle of oat milk and a rotting lettuce in the bottom of my fridge.” Dan yawns, Phil makes the mistake of looking at his scrunched up, adorable face. 

“Oh, that’s just the usual vegan diet, isn’t it?” If he’s not cheeky he'll be - something. He’ll be heart eyes and falling in love outside of a hospital where he’d just extracted an actual bug from a childs nose. 

“Shutup. All your teeth are going to fall out in the next five years, Mr I ate haribosfor dinner at three am.” Phil wants to point out that Dan had had absolutely no issue sharing them, decides against it when he realises Dan is nothing if not stubborn, will purposely stop joining Phil for lunch if it means proving a point. 

“I take excellent care of my teeth, thank you very much, as a weasel I need to maintain them for all the biting.” He explains, like it’s completely normal, like everyone else is going around saying the same thing. 

  
  
“Sometimes I think you’re from another planet, y’know.” It’s said in _that_ way again, the you’re weird but i’m a bit obsessed with it way. He wants to tell Dan to stop doing that as he is not a surgeon and therefore incapable of operating on his own heart when it inevitably explodes. 

“I’m from the planet of hurry up and walk before tesco has people in it.”

-

“Once someone sent me a photo of their dick next to a cucumber, I guess for comparison reasons?” Dan’s holding one up, assessing it, deciding he likes it and putting it in his basket. 

  
  
“And how did you feel about that?”

  
  
“It was like - er. Like someone was sending me a photo of their dick and shreks dick, a threesome i’m kinda tempted by.” Phil walks into a pile of neatly stacked up toilet rolls, thinks if he’s arrested for public disorder he can plead innocent with the testimony of ‘but, your honour, he was talking about having a threesome with Shrek’. 

  
  
Dan is quite literally no help, he’s the opposite of help, he is the devil with his phone out taking photos of Phil’s struggles. “This was well worth coming out early for.” 

  
  
“Help me!” He’s desperately trying to stack them back up into a tower, only somehow managing to make it worse with every additional packet he adds on. “Dan! I will take James back if you don’t come over here and help.”  


  
It works. There’s an effort made, then there’s eventually a tower that looks like it won’t fall over if someone so much as breathes near it. 

“I hate you.”

  
  
“Ok, bub.” Dan smiles, goes on ahead to stare at the bazillion types of mushrooms Tesco’s has on offer.

“They’re slugs. Why are you putting slugs in your food?”

  
  
“Phil, no offence, but since we’ve been in here all you’ve put in your trolley is a packet of baby wipes and a mug with a dog on it. What sort of meal are you hoping to make out of that?” He goes for these massive things, big and open and looking like they’ve come directly from some magical fairytale forest. 

  
  
“I eat the baby wipes after boiling them in a pan, they’re really delicious.” Dan rolls his eyes, pushes Phil towards some fruit that he may be a bit more willing to buy. In the end he gets many types or berries, some oranges andsome bananas that he probably won’t eat cos the stringy bits annoy him to no end. 

“There we go! Actual substance. It’s a miracle you’ve not got scurvy.” 

  
  
“You’re so pretentious today, Daniel. Let a boy do his shopping without judgment.” They’re finally away from the scene of the crime, now in the fridge aisles where Phil’s free to buy yogurts that will go out of date before he even thinks about eating them. 

“Do you think this looks like a turd?” Dan’s back from wherever he’d vanished to, holding up some sort of vegan meat substitute on a stick, “it’s nice, I've had it before, but it sort of does.” 

“Er - yeah. Slugs and turds and shrek dicks, you have an interesting diet.” They stare at each other, it’s only a matter of time until they both lose it.  Lose it they do. It makes them laugh, laugh in the way that ends up physically hurting, laugh until members of staff start poking their heads around the end of the aisle to check up on them. “Stop it- stop. God. I’m going to throw up.” 

“That was the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. I actually hate it, i’m going to think about it every time I eat anything and I hate it.” Dan whines, staring down at his basket of goods with sad eyes. “Oh no.” 

“That’s what you get for leaving me to struggle with all the toilet roll. Immediate karma.”

It’s nearing eight am now, they’d already been in here for a solid forty five minutes, acting like a complete pair of hooligans. 

  
  
People are going to start coming in soon, the fancy suit wearing people who will absolutely judge them both. They’ll all be going insane in the aisle with the meal deals, fighting for the pasta with the chicken instead of the tuna. 

“Obviously the world is on your side.” Dan yawns again, this time Phil categorically doesn’t look. “Should we hurry up now? Feel like they’re going to start thinking we’re doing somethingsuspicious soon. Do you think if we shove a watermelon up your shirt they’ll believe you’re pregnant and not just stealing?”

  
  
“Yeah, i’m sure tesco is a strong believer in m-preg.” Phil snorts, ushers Dan around the store with a little more force than he had been doing before. He wants to be out within the next twenty minutes, wants to miss the absolute worst of the traffic. 

They make it round eventually, after a minor argument about crunchy nut.

  
  
“Are you really buying all the things they literally put there to lure people in?” Dan is trying to block him from the little plastic bowl of easter chocolate as they stand in line at the checkouts, “you know that’s why they do, right? They’re strategically placed.” 

“They’re Phil placed, placed especially for me to have and to eat.” He doesn’t get the chocolate, one of them is next and Dan’s not volunteering to go. 

-

“What’re you doing for breakfast?” Phil asks. They’re leaving now, walking past all of the people who are now heading inside for the great pasta war. 

“Dunno. Nothing?” Dan shrugs, he’s staring down at his phone, trying to work out when his next bus is. It’s something he complained about often, how London transport seems to be both constant and never there all at the same time; Whenever he needed a bus they were suddenly nowhere to be fucking seen.  


“Wanna come over? I can do pancakes! The big fluffy American sort. I put all the stuff in whilst you were looking at something probably shrek themed.” 

  
  
Dan’s face displays twelve different emotions in a second, settles on something mildly unsure. “I don’t know, is that - you know. Is that a good idea?”

  
  
“Just pancakes, Dan.” He doesn’t bring up the obvious, doesn’t say how sex is off the cards because he doesn’t think he could handle seeing Dan like that again. “Then I can drive you home afterwards?”

  
  
That wins Dan over, he just nods and lets Phil lead the way.

-

“When did you decide you wanted to become a doctor?” Their plates are still half full, Phil had really gone all out in trying to show off to Dan about how good of a pancake cook he was, ended up making enough to feed an entire street. 

“Is this the right of passage question?” 

  
  
“Oh, for sure. It’s only a matter of time before someone asks, might as will be me.” He wants to lounge back, unbutton his trousers but he thinks that might give Dan the wrong impression after his promise of no funny business. 

  
  
“When I was nine I saw this old lady get just get hit by a car. It was some car theft, they were driving it like they were in a fucking game of grand theft auto. She wasn't even in the road, she was literally walking on the pavement.” Dan pushes his plate into the middle of the table, stacks Phil’s on top of it. “And they just flew around the corner, slammed into her so hard that she literally went flying into the front of this shop.”

  
  
“The world is so -” He doesn’t even finish because Dan is already nodding in agreement. 

“I know, fucked.” He sighs. “It just drove off. Didn’t even check - just left her there. I was walking on the other side with my mum, on the way home from school. I think I was just in shock, she always says I was silent but there were tears rolling down my face.”

  
  
“That’s a big thing for anyone to see, never mind a nine year old.” He reaches over the table, pats Dan’s hand in a way he hopes might be comforting.  


  
“Yeah. It was - I don’t know, stayed with me. I thought that was it, you know? Like someone called an ambulance, but who knew how long that would take. Then some bloke just came running out the shop, he knew exactly what to do to help this woman. He just - it was like seeing something in a superhero movie.” 

  
  
“Did she -“

  
  
“Live? Yeah! Yeah, I remember asking my mum constantly to check the news for updates. Turns out this man who ran out was a doctor, if he hadn’t have been there she would’ve died. He was this ten minutes of difference that meant she lived. When she told me I remember thinking I want that, I want to be able to stop someone from just fucking dying in the street. I want to be that difference.” He’s got his fist clenched - angry at something still - Phil can already guess at what it is. They were never caught. There are so many stories, so many people involved in hit and runs where they never even end up with a suspect. “So, yeah, that’s my origin story.”

  
  
“Very noble.” Phil smiles, “I just went into it because I wanted to fill out forms with the Dr title.”

  
  
“You’re fucking shitting me.” It’s a lie, but it’s worth it just to see the way Dan’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. 

“I am.” Phil laughs, “i’ll tell you the actual story one day.” 

“How mysterious.” Dan takes it upon himself to do the washing up, despite Phil’s many, many protests. He’s secretly happy about it, washing up is the worst chore in his opinion, accidentally touching wet floating pieces of food is not his idea of a fun time. 

He does dry though as Dan washes, being passed plates and cups and just like the shared shopping trip it’s all very domestic. 

“Any plans beside sleeping?” 

  
  
“Watching tv, having the worlds most indulgent shower, reading things people on twitter are saying and losing all faith in the world.” Dan puffs up his cheeks, and it’s too easy for Phil to poke both fingers into either side, force them to deflate. He should stop the casual touches, should definitely stop these sorts of touches, because he’s going to do something stupid next time like lean in for a kiss. 

“Stop going on twitter, bad for the brain. Too many union jack flags on there complaining about the gays, and Meghan and Harry.” Phil nudges Dan out the way, cleans around the sink just so he has something to do with his hands. 

  
  
“It’s like the worst of humanity gather there, you can’t go into one comment thread without at least five people spewing bile. It’s an actual cesspit.” Dan’s all casually leaned up against his kitchen counter, looking like he does it all the time, like that’s his rant to Phil about the state of the world spot. 

“It’s sort of worse than facebook, isn’t it? There people are at least a little bit more cautious about things because their names and faces are attached, on twitter people are like i’m called _White England Forever_ and i’m actually a walking, talking _Ford Focus_.”

  
  
“That’s literally it! The concept of anonymity has complete destroyed the internet, there is not one single person on there who would say any of that to anyone’s face.” He’s throwing his hands up into the air now, looking entirely done and it’s not even a full conversation yet.

“Calm down, we can discuss the dire state of instagram comments after you’ve had a sleep.” Dan looks the opposite of a man who wants to go to sleep, helooks alarmingly awake. “How are you so wired?”

  
  
“I had a coffee just before we left.”

  
  
“Oh, rookie mistake. I’ll teach you the ways of the night shift before the next one.” He smacks Dan’s thigh with a towel, getting him to move out of the way of his cupboard so he can get out a mug. “I’ll make you some _Horlicks_ , maybe that’ll knock you out.” 

  
“Am I - staying here?” Dan asks, confusion evident on his face. 

  
  
“Oh, crap. I’m driving you home, aren’t I? Forgot about that.” Dan just - he feels like he belongs here. So much so that Phil had forgotten entirely that he had a flat of his own to get back to. 

“I mean, I don’t mind.” It’s quiet, aimed at the floor rather than at Phil, a secret that can’t be said too loudly for fear the entire world will find out. “If you don’t.”

It’s surprisingly easy to say, “Sure. You can put your bag of shopping in my fridge until you leave.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty to curlylinguist for kicking me up the arse without them... this chapter would not exist :P
> 
> Thankyou all for sticking with me! I am back in the swing of this fic now, already started the next chapter :)., twitter IS a cesspit btw. 
> 
> As alwaaaays, let me know if you enjoyed cos i am a sl*t for comments <3.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you wanna follow me on tumblr for info on updates!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)

Dan’s insisting he’s not tired, despite looking like he’s going to pass out at any moment. 

Phil doesn’t quite understand what this night - well, day - has turned into. It’s unusual for your one night stand to return, isn’t it? For them to be stood in your living room, wrapped up in pyjamas that don’t belong to them. Phil’s been watching him from the sofa, shoving all the words he wants to say back down his throat. 

_What is this?You do remember that we’ve had sex, right? That you held my hand during a storm and - Christ._ He’s too old for this. 

“Whose this?” He’s crouched down in front of Phil’s bookcase, has been for the last ten minutes. He doubts he’ll last must longer- pins and needles, muscle pain or something like that. 

“Dunno. You’ll have to bring it here.” Phil knows, just wants Dan to come and sit down. 

Dan groans as he stands, for one second Phil thinks he’s going to topple forwards and knock himself out on the edge of a shelf. He regains his balance, graceful like an elephant. “You and..?”

  
  
“My brother, brother and his girlfriend. I make a very good third wheel.” 

“Fun.” He totters back across the room, Phil watches him put the photo back in the wrong place even though there’sa very large empty gap in which it clearly belongs. He’s too tired to care, though, all he wants is to sink down under his covers and sleep for a million years. 

  
  
Dan has other ideas. 

  
  
“Mario kart! We should play. I’m so fucking good, like e-sports level good.” He’s suddenly all energy again, darting around the room like a Duracell bunny on cocaine. It’s draining just watching him, Phil feels all of his energy leak out of him and into the sofa. He wonders if he can sleep with his eyes open, but then realises that wouldn’t help at all because Dan wants to play a stupid game. Phil should’ve seen this coming, stopped himself from buying it all those years ago because obviously one day a caffeine fuelled junior doctor would insist on playing it. 

“No.” Phil grumbles, sinking into all the softness and waiting for it to accept him, to swallow him whole. He wants to live in a land of cushions and sleep. “I’m sleeping, being asleep. Shush.” He pulls his hoodie strings tight, just a nose sticking out of all this green. It’s alarming to think he trusts Dan this much, that he’ll sleep whilst he’s loose in his flat. He giggles beneath the material as he imagines tying Dan up to a handle on one of his kitchen cupboards, leaving him there until he wakes up. He’d give him a bowl of water first, of course, he’s a good owner. 

“You look like a Brussel sprout.” The sofa dips beside him, a new source of warmth that does nothing at all to wake Phil up. He wants to go towards it, to curl up in it, to open Dan’s chest up and make himself a little home. Lack of sleep and feelings aren’t a good mix, they intensify everything and make Phil wish he was allowed to do that, to get closer. He doesn’t know. It’s been nearly two months now of this big, overwhelming friendship. Something he doesn’t want to ruin, something he’s constantly trying to keep afloat. One day he’s going to put too much water into the boat and it’s going to sink to the bottom of the sea, but Dan’s going to swim back up to shore and leave Phil sat amongst the crabs and - coral. Whatever is down there. 

He can’t push it, basically. They’re friends, but in a way that Phil’s never been friends with anyone before. 

He finally replies, something small and stupid but he’s allowed because he’s tired, “your mum looks like a Brussel sprout.”

  
  
“Didn’t know twelve year olds were allowed to be doctors.” Dan’s suddenly there, pulling him out of his green cave and forcing Phil to come face to face with an expression far too soft for the whole friendly thing he’d been going for. 

Dan’s confusing, but Phil would never begrudge him for it. He’s finding his feet in the world, coming to terms with everything. 

“I have an iq of 270, it’d be a crime to keep this twelve year old away.” He rolls into the warmth, not entirely on purpose, just tips towards it and then keeps falling. He’s got a head on Dan’s knee, then he’s got a gentle hand in his hair. 

“You’re stupid, you know.”

  
  
“Yeah, what of it?” It’s a moment to join all their other moments, the ones that keep Phil up at night. Sometimes he thinks maybe Dan is waiting for him to make the first move, to make all the big decisions. 

It’s easier with a one night stand, easier to make bold moves when you’re certain you’ll never see them again. Dan had done all that last time they’d been here, been the one to lean in and to touch and to - everything. Phil sighs, big and heavy and it makes Dan jump and knee him in cheek. 

“Sorry, shit. You alright? I thought you were asleep.” Phil doesn’t even move, just stays nestled in a place he’s not quite sure he should be. 

Dan hadn’t wanted him to see all of this, all of him, he’d gone without leaving a phone number. It had clearly been his intention to never see Phil again, and now he feels a bit guilty about it. He should’ve given Dan the option to leave, to find a different mentor, to not be here right now with him. 

  
  
“Do you want to go home?” He blurts, once his thoughts all become too messy to stay contained in his own brain. 

“No?” It’s a question more than it is a statement, but Phil’s certain it’s a question aimed at him rather than a question Dan’s aiming at himself. He’s asking Phil if it’s ok, if he’s allowed to be here. 

“Alright.” He’ll be fine with some sleep him in, less of someone who wants to make a catastrophe. “Do you want to take my bed and i’ll stay here? Think i’m basically asleep anyway.”

  
  
“No, you dolt. It’s your apartment.”

“So? My mum would string me up by my toes if she ever found out I wasn’t treating my guest like a princess.” 

“Shutup. Go to bed before I drag you there.” He wants to make some comment about how that sounded, but he doesn’t. He keeps his mouth shut and instead stands, offers out his hand. Dan raises his eyebrows, alarmed all over again. 

“It’s a tiny sofa, you’re a tall boy. Just— just come on.” He’s making a move, he thinks, not quite sure which one. One that leaves the door open for Dan, just ajar, leaves him with the choice of whether or not he wants to push it open all the way. It’s a soft gentle creek when Dan takes Phil’s hand. 

-

“So you lived your best slutty life during your uni years?” They’re still not asleep, one of those unfair moments in life where the second your head hit the pillow it decided it wanted to throw a party instead. 

Him and Dan are face to face, not that they can really see each other. After Phil’s first night shift, first failed attempt at sleep, he’d immediately gone out to buy black out blinds. It may as well be three in the morning as opposed to ten am. He can barely make out a thing, maybe the gentle rise and fall of Dan’s chest, sometimes the hint of a smile when Phil says something that particularly pleases him. 

“I was not slutty, per-se. I just.. I can’t even call it experimenting cos I like was fully aware I was into guys.” He’s whispering and he doesn’t know why, he’s not fifteen and hosting a sleepover that his parents can barge into at any moment. He just feels like it’s right, that if he’s too loud about this it’ll make Dan shrink away from him again. He’s on a different journey, worlds away from Phil’s own, and he’s in a place where he wants to be quiet about it right now. He doesn’t want loud and everyone knowing, he wants whispers and time. “I just came into my own.”  


  
“Sure, if you say so, Lester.” Dan laughs, kicks him beneath the quilt in a way Phil thinks might be permission to be a little bit louder, turn the volume up just enough that it fills the space between them. 

“Look I was just very interested in being— being good. Your own pleasure is obviously great, but I was always more concerned with making other people lose it.” 

“I noticed.” Dan’s voice is louder now, too. “You wouldn’t even let me suck you off, hand jobs are usually last on peoples list.” 

“That was in my top five hand jobs of all time, thank you very much, do not insult it.” He chastises, hopes Dan can see him poking his tongue out in the darkness of the bedroom. 

“Just top five?”

  
  
“Fine, fine. Top. Number one. Didn’t want give you too big of a head.” He thinks it’s good that they’reacknowledging it, but he doesn’t know if joking about it means it’s something - not serious. Just something funny that that’ll look back on. Something that hadn’t mean anything. 

  
  
“Cos I’ve got massive hands.” Dan jabs him beneath the quilt, then his palm settles against Phil’s hip and it makes his heart jump in a way that he’s not proud of. Had he always been this easy, or was it just Dan? 

He’s tongue tied, completely. Dan’s hand is just - there. It’s there and it’s lingering and he doesn’t know if it’s asking permission or not. 

“Dan.” He manages, after what feels like hours as opposed to seconds. The darkness is creating a veil of safety, somewhere Dan feels content to shuffle closer. 

“I’m not - I don’t know. Fuck.” Dan huffs, and they’re so close that he can feel it fanning out across his skin. “I’ve never had anything like this, it wasn't even like this with that guy at uni. That was just-- me wanting to please. I don’t want to ruin it, ruin whatever this could be.” And he sounds so desperately sad that Phil finally breaks all the careful, pulls him too close too quickly. 

“You’re not ruining anything.” Phil hopes it sounds like a promise, that his voice is enough to convey all of his one million thoughts. 

“I just have this collection of one night stands now that I run away from, you know? And i’ve always wanted to run away, until you. Until I broke a rule and stayed over. I’ve walked home when there was like nearly knee deep snow, you know? Like - you think I stayed because the storm, I didn’t. I stayed because you weredifferent and you made me feel different.” He’s clinging to Phil now, fingers bunched up in his hoodie like if he lets go he’ll disappear before he gets to finish his speech. 

“I was sad, you know. When I woke up and you’d left, I dove for that note hoping for a phone number.” Phil admits, and Dan laughs in a way that sounds wet, he wonders if there will be tears tonight or if Dan will just about see them off. 

  
  
“I was sad, too, fuck. I thought about you all day and wondered if i’d look insane if I turned up at your door.” Dan sounds better, less about to burst into tears. “I don’t know what it even was, just this entire thing i’d never felt before and it scared me because that meant I - fuck, this is going to sound stupid, but the idea of just being sexually attracted to men always terrified me less than the idea of falling in love with a man. Like if I fall in love with a man than that means.. you know, that properly means something because it’s - I don’t know. That’s just how it felt. Stupid. Even when I had an actual boyfriend it still felt.. unreal, because I don't think I was ever in love with him. I could trick my own brain into thinking it was just sex and sex isn't actually.. whatever.” 

“It’s not stupid. It’s confusing and hard and everyone goes through it differently, I think. Nothing about your own personal journey is stupid, ok?” This isn’t about him, either, he doesn’t even think about himself for a second. “I get it, though. You don’t have to bring a one night stand home to your family, introduce them to your friends, but someone you’re in love with.. yeah. I guess they’d be properly in your life.”  


  
Dan sniffs, and this time he can’t stop them. Phil just holds him through it, lets a wet patch settle into the green and he doesn’t let go even when Dan finally falls asleep. 

-

When he wakes up hours later Dan is still there, sat cross legged in Phil’s pyjamas fiddling on his phone. He thinks it’s about five, honestly couldn’t tell you, there’s no hint of light apart from the light coming from a screen.

“Hey, you hungry again yet?” His voice his scratchy, he turns away to cough into the crook of his arm and prays it’s just from waking up and not because he’s getting sick. 

  
  
Dan jumps again, bops Phil on the head with the sweater paw he’d created. “You’ve done that twice tonight, trying to give me a heart-attack?”

  
  
“Could totally save you if I did.” Phil stretches out across the bed, it’s that proper satisfying sort of stretch that leaves him in utter bliss. 

“You think that’s reassuring, but it really isn’t.” Dan drops his phone down in favour of sinking down beside Phil. They’re touching at a million different points, shoulder to shoulder, pinky fingers, thighs - everything. It extends the bliss, makes Phil feel boneless in a way he’s never felt. 

  
  
“Hey. I’m a good doctor.” He stares up at the ceiling, even though he can’t see a thing, if he turns to face Dan right now he’ll do something like lean in and kiss the living daylights out of him. He doesn’t know if they’re there yet. 

  
  
“You’ll tell me i’m allergic to water, or I have some disease that can only be cured if I fly out to like the middle of the Atlantic ocean and dive in at some exact coordinates and find the magenta coloured fucking - I don’t know, pebble.” He sounds out of breathe by the end of it. 

“You can’t cure yourself with pebbles, Daniel, this isn’t tv.” 

“Shutup.” 

  
  
“You shutup.” 

  
  
“Make me.”

That throws Phil off, and that in-turn makes Dan laugh. “C’mon, let’s go make us some dinner. By that I mean let’s call up dominos.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of this chapter is sponsored by my lesbian breakdown when i was like oh being in love ... means.......hahahhahah! it's weird how in denial you can be and how u can like desperately try to trick yourself when you're younger (like oh it's not lesbian if its's just touching tits... me @ me i will kill u!) lmao hgrefwddefgrtnh. anyway cool. i love 2 not come out to my family or 99% of the people i know in rl. this story version of dan and me.... solidarity. sorry just wanted to add this note to say i KNOW this isn't A UNIVERSAL feeling/thing and everyone has their own experience/journey !!!!!! 
> 
> i hope we are all doing good
> 
> hope you enjoyed the chapter, as always let me know your THOUGHTS <3.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: for ed mentions and injuries.

“I’ve never seen an arm bend in that way.” Dan’s gone white as a sheet, staring down suspiciouslyat his left arm like it’s going to dislocate at any second, twist itself into a pretzel. 

“I don’t get you, you balk at the - like. The less extreme things. The other day that woman came in with half her leg hanging off and you didn’t bat an eyelash.” He holds open the door, let’s Dan go through in front of him so he can catch the piece of string hanging from the back of his white coat. It’d been annoying him all day, but he was never still long enough to catch it. 

  
  
“Are you grooming me?”

  
  
“Just making you look professional.” Phil smiles sweetly, wraps the piece of string around his finger. He has a feeling he’s going to be fiddling with it all day, like when you find a piece of blu-tac and your new main goal in life is to roll it into a ball, into a tube, make a tiny model of a penis. 

“Mhm, whatever you say.” Dan doesn’t believe him, but that's alright. “Anyway. The leg thing was like understandable? I got it. It was just a straight up chainsaw incident, but the bone thing shouldn’t even be possible. Bones shouldn’t be able to just move like that. I don’t like that bones are apparently made out of flubber.” 

“You’ll find out a lot of things you previously thought were impossible are actually possible.” He thinks he sounds wise, like a true mentor, but Dan’s laughing like he’s said something ridiculous. 

  
  
“Alright, Mr Self Help Book.” 

  
  
“You’re so mean to me, go see your patients.”

-

“Bit tenacious.”

“Who? James?” Marks been catching up with him more often recently, gone from maybe once a week to almost everyday. He doesn’t quite know how to feel about it, knows he’d rather be talking to someone else.

“That’s the one, he’s ready to throw anyone under the bus at any second,” He pauses, then smiles, it reminds him of a shark. Not an actual shark, because that would be giving sharks a bad name as Phil thinks they’re actually not all that bad. If you go into someones house then why shouldn’t they bite you? Mark is like a loan shark, stood at his door with a slimy smile and an IOU, “I like him.”

  
  
_Of course you do_ , he wants to say. “Good. I’m glad you’re getting along. I’m sure he’ll do well with someone like you.”

  
  
“Yeah,” Mark follows him into his office, which can only mean something bad, “you and that - Dan, is it?”

“It is.”You know it is. He’s pulling the string along the underside of his fingernails, content when it comes out clean. On his days off he can get filthy, pizza sauce and dirt from his plants making a home beneath the white. He’s trying his upmost best to not give Mark anymore eye contact, doesn’t want to encourage him, give him the in to start talking about the last person he wants to discuss. 

“You’re very.. close.” He looks up, briefly, trying to gauge exactly what he’s going for. The face suggest he’s being friendly, the tone suggests the opposite. “You spend an awful lot of time with him.”

  
  
“He’s under my supervision, of course I do.” He wraps the piece of string tightly around his middle finger, a distraction from the man sitting on the other side of his desk. It leaves an in print, he wonders how long it’ll stay on his skin, hope Mark goes before it does. 

“Oh, of course. Of course.” Mark has more to say, is waiting for Phil to look up again and acknowledge him but he decides to not give him the pleasure. It’s an awkward twenty seconds of silence, he’s not going to break but Mark does because he can’t go too long without the sound of his own voice. “You just look awful cosy, is all.” 

“I’m showing him how to not kill people, Mark, is that alright? Do you want me to take a backseat and let him go wild?” 

  
  
“So defensive, it almost sounds like you have something to hide.” Mark looks like he’s won something, this imaginary argument he’d been having in his head. “Do you? Have something to hide?”

  
  
Phil sighs, wants to slam his head down against the desk just so this conversation will end. He hates drama, hates the way some people in this building are out for others just to boost themselves. They’re supposed to be here to save lives, to help everyone who walks through their doors, they’re not here for workplace politics and - god. Phil’s not built for this. 

“No, I don’t have anything to hide, unless you count my drawer full of sweets that i’m not supposed to be eating.” He wonders if the string is long enough - strong enough - to strangle Mark. Just a bit. Not anything life ending. Just some light, leave me alone strangulation. 

“I’m just warning you, Phil, i’m sure i’m not the only one to notice. I’d hate to have to report you, you know? I think you’re just amazing, but being distracted during work - in a place like this - can just be dangerous.” He taps on the desk, trying to get Phil’s attention like he’s a fucking dog and not someone he’s worked with for almost ten years. 

  
  
“I’m not the one with a track record.” It was a stupid thing to say, all the false happiness Mark had been displaying up to know was replaced with something sharp, something that’s going to come around and bite Phil on the arse.

“I’ll see you around, Doctor Lester.” He doesn’t slam the door behind him, but the gentle way in which he closes it is more threatening than if he had. 

-

you on your lunch yet? 

_Can be, come to my office? Bring something so unhealthy i’ll have to go and have my arteries scraped, please._

That raisin muffin?

  
_If you bring that to me I will not be held responsible for my actions, do you want to spend the afternoon on life support?_

Empty threats.. You’d miss me and spend all your time giving me bed baths

_Fat, sugar, carbs._

Fsc. Got it coming to you stat

_Bring a drip, inject in straight into me veins plz._

-

“You!” Dan exclaims, a bag of something in his hand, “Smell.”

  
  
“Just put the food down before I bite your head off, Howell.” He’s up to here, the here being his hand held just above his head. First Mark had ruined his mood, then paperwork had been an absolute pain of a thing, he’s just waiting for one final thing to happen because the rule of three always seems to be very prevalent in his life. 

“I actually left the building and got you Mcdonalds, say please.” He’s swinging it around, this delicious bag of bad things that Phil would honestly drop to his knees for right now. 

“Please.”

  
  
“That wasn’t hard.” Dan grins, dumps it onto his desk and then goes to his own bag for something that looks less greasy and more green. “I’m trying to become a proper salad person. You know those extravagant as fuck ones people make on instagram? I want to be them.” 

“I think a nice salad is something that has to be unhealthy, like you have to dump so much sauce and dressings and.. hard bread-“

  
  
“Croutons?”

“That’s obviously what I meant.” Phil’s done will salad discussions, busies himself with shoving too many fries at a time into his mouth. People who eat one fry at a time are not actually human, he thinks. 

They eat in silence, apart from Phil’s random groans of appreciation that Dan kicks him beneath the desk for. 

He’s not sure what it means when you just want to sit in silence with someone. Usually he feels the need to fill all the empty space with words - words that often don’t make sense but are at least noise. With Dan he’s perfectly content to just share the emptiness. 

  
  
“God. I would give Mcdonalds my first born.” He screws up all the rubbish, throws it into a bag but he decides to keep the string for a bit longer. 

“Bit extreme, but yeah sometimes I wish I could just eat one chicken nugget. Do you think I could go repent, to like - another vegan. Sorry Vegan for I have sinned, the lure of Mcdonalds was just too much. I’ll never do it again. That sort of thing?” He’s munching some lettuce like a rabbit, cheeks all puffed up and he’s the perfect picture of something Phil really just - wants. He doesn’t know how to quantify the want, wonders if a spreadsheet could work. Just like a budget, I will give 85% of my heart to Dan and the other 15% of it to food. 

“I think you say things sometimes that I don’t even know how to respond to, which is impressive on your part.” He leans back in his seat, spins around in circles just to stop himself from staring. He’s very easy to look at, easy on the eyes - anything else that means the same. “Anything interesting?”  


  
  
“Er - yeah. You missed out on my excellent diagnoses, i’m coming for your job.” 

“Oh? Tell me so I can judge you, consider this your first performance review.” He does look this time, appreciates the particularly curly curl that’s made an appearance today. 

  
  
“It’s a rare one, it’s like we’re tag teaming on an episode of house.” Dan laughs, catches Phils eye with something surprisingly shy. As much as they’re maybe _something,_ Dan has made it clear he appreciates Phil as a doctor. He’s always singing his praises, ranting and raving about something difficult Phil had figured out. This shy version of Dan is the proper doctor version, the one who wants to impress Phil as a colleague as opposed to what they are outside of the hospital.

“Oooo, fun. I like the rare ones.”

  
  
“Ok, so, there’s this girl - around 13 - and she comes in with her mum, says she sees herself as bigger, sometimes. She’s tiny, though, properly tiny. Er - Bill - I think? That’s his name. The other doctor, he starts asking the usual questions, the ones that relate to body dysmorphia. All her answers point to no. She’s never tried to go on a diet, is fine with her appearance almost always, just sometimes she says she looks down at her limbs and they seem gigantic.” Dan’s telling it like he’s performing on a stage, it’s endearing and another thing to add to his proposed Dan budget. 2% of my brain should go to.. whatever this is.  


  
“I have nothing.” Dan beams at that, like he’s proud of stumping him. 

  
  
“When I was at uni and avoiding doing my actual work, I started googling all this random shit. There was something called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. There’s two main branches. Micropsia, that’s where things appear smaller - so you look down and have the arm of like a baby.” Dan looks down at his own arm, just to check. “And then macropsia where things appear fucking massive. It can be limbs or objects or - so one day you could look up and your bed looks small enough to be doll house furniture.” 

  
  
“That sounds made up! But like stupid enough that I believe you.” He likes learning new things, some other doctors - especially the seniors - hate it. They think it’s a sign of weakness, act like they’re being shown up. Phil will eagerly lap up all the knowledge someone has to offer him, at the end of the day it’ll make him a better doctor, it’ll help his patients. 

“Right? I read it like all wide eyed and confused, but then I started reading actual articles of people who have it and it’s properly weird. It’s apparently caused by the parietal lobe, nothing to do with mental health or hallucinations, it can occur just before a migraine. Like a warning sign of what’s about to come. And what does this little girl suffer from? Migraines.” He’s on the edge of his seat now, hands flailing about in the way they do. Phil loves it when people are excited about medicine, when they come into his office just thrilled to talk about their day. There’s so much misery involved in the job, both down to the nature and the - other stuff. The budget cuts, the long hours, the way the government will cheer them on when it suits them but then refuse to give nurses a pay raise. Seeing Dan like this is a nice change of pace. 

“Is there a cure or?”

  
  
“Er - not really. It tends to go away as you get older, most cases appear in children and then disappear once they become an adult. If it’s migraine linked, you can get obviously get things that’ll help with them and that can reduce the episodes.” Dan is scribbling away in a notebook now, like he’s trying to document his thoughts so one day he can write a book of weird things he’s found.

  
“They’re always the worst, when you can tell them what it is, but not help them.” Phil hates it, the dramatic change in their face. First it’s something ecstatic, they finally know what’s wrong with them. Then it’s something devastating when they realise it can’t be fixed.

“She’s going to go to a neurologist, get some tests, see if they can catch the brain actively during an episode to confirm that’s what it is. But no one else can come up with anything - so. The mum also said she can remember her sister saying the same thing when they were growing up, always just thought she was being annoying. But it’s a thing that often runs in the family.” 

“Right, we have allergic to water and we have Alice in wonderland syndrome. Next one to find the weird thing wins.”

-

“Phil! Phil, god, stop walking!” Alice is chasing him down the hall, shoes squeaking against the tiles. “You need to come with me. It’s Margaret and it’s not - it’s serious this time.” 

_The rule of three always seems to be very prevalent in his life._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if you want to follow me on tumblr for info on updates!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> this fic is just me wanting to talk about rare diseases. 
> 
> as always let me know what you think! and ty to everyone who has been so loud and enthusiastic about this fic!!!! <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me adding a letter into ANOTHER fic.... more likely than you think.

Everyone has to die.   


  
The countdown begins the second you enter the world, this ticking clock no one can see. 

Phil tries not to think about it much, which is ironic considering his line of work. He visits his parents often so they never look drastically older, when he talks to his brother he always ends up accidentally treating their conversation like a diagnoses consult because he needs to know he’s ok. 

Everyone has to die, but sometimes Phil likes to act as though they don’t. 

Life is loss, and loss is crushing and horrible and unfair. Phil wants to kick and scream and stamp his feet until this all becomes just - made up. A dream. Because this time it’s all his fault, he could’ve prevented this and no one around him seems to understand that. They’re patting his back in gentle apologies, giving him false platitude after false platitude and Phil just wants someone to be honest with him, to strip him down and show him up for who he is.

“Phil,” Alice is crouched down in front of him all of a sudden, the only person in this room he trusts to be honest, “the cleaners need to get in, come on.” 

Phil wants to stay on the floor, to stay sat in this horrible moment he’s created. He doesn’t deserve to just get up and walk out, go on with his life when he’d just ended one. 

“Phil. Up.” She’s gone all commanding, and he knows better than to ignore her. He holds out a hand, gets heaved up to his feet by someone at least a foot shorter than him. “Go to your office, calm down. Text me if you need me.” 

-

Heart-attack. Preventable. He should’ve looked closer at her charts, should’ve - something. He should’ve done _something_. 

  
  
A&E was designed in a way that stopped you from getting close to patients, it was usually a quick in and out, a - _I’ll never see you again -_ I hope I never see you again.

Phil didn’t get attached because he couldn’t get attached, there was never enough time. He still made sure to give everyone the best treatment possible, was polite and friendly and tried to make them all feel at ease. That was all he _could_ do -until Margaret. 

She was in and out so often she may as well of had her own bed, may as well have worked in reception. 

When it comes to death - at least here - he’s usually composed, he can read out the time and then leave the room, go on with his day. He can write up a detailed report, with all the squeamish details and be ok, he can go to sleep and be ok. He can just - just be ok. 

Today he’s anything but ok, he’s being unprofessional and unfair. He’s leaving his team to deal with a busy department alone because he’s not sure he can deal with anything else - not now, not today.

_It comes in threes._

Alice will tell him she understands, insist that there’s always going to be a case - a patient - that makes you feel something more than you should be feeling. The professional barrier will drop and your heart will be exposed and you won’t know what to do with all the pain.

_-_

He’s holding a glass, it makes impact with the wall the moment his door opens. It shatters into not enough pieces, he’d wanted it to be dramatic - to be worth it. The aftermath wasn’t worth it all, just a display of something he’d spent his entire life avoiding.

  
  
He hates how ugly male anger is. The breaking things, the slamming of fists, broken dry wall and doors littered with holes. He’s always strayed away from it, never wanted his anger to scare those around him. It’s usually a silent brooding thing, makes his brain feel like it’s on fire, but today he just can’t help it.

So he throws a glass against a wall and it doesn’t make anything better.

  
  
“Phil?” It’s Dan, because who else would it be? - in this predictable, hospital drama of a life he’s suddenly started living.

He ignores him, instead opts to sink down on to the floor, hand slamming into a broken piece of glass. He doesn’t even notice until Dan points out the blood. 

“Christ, stay there.” Dan says, like he thinks Phil’s actually going to be able to get up at this point, like he’s going to be able to walk away from where he feels superglued to the ground. 

He comes back a few minutes later with everything he could find to fix Phil up, gently takes his hand and starts cleaning up the blood on his palm. Phil barely registers it, just stares at Dan like he’s a weirdo for being here, like he can’t see the absolute monster he is and he's just— helping him. “You alright? This might sting a bit.”

  
  
It does sting, but he barely pulls a face. He feels like all of his emotions have been wrung out of him, like two giant hands have picked up either side of his body and twisted him like a wet dish cloth. “It’s fine.” 

“So, he does speak.” Dan smiles, something tentative and soft, something Phil’s undeserving of right now.

“She died.”

  
  
“Who?” Dan asks, wrapping Phil’s entire hand up in a bandage which a bit OTT but— it’s Dan, so it’s fine. 

“Margaret. My patient. It was all my fault, I should’ve— stopped it. Heart attacks can be—”

“How?” Dan butts in, and for once his face is unreadable— the route he takes is unexpected. He becomes pragmatic, fact based, knocks Phil off his emotional rollercoaster.

“What— how? By knowing it was coming! I could’ve stopped it, should’ve stopped it.” Phil’s bottom lip juts out, makes him look an awful lot like a petulant toddler getting told off by a teacher for running too fast on the playground.

“Mhm, how? How could you have stopped it? I’ve seen you work, you read everyone’s chart properly. I mean, even the stuff everyone else deems unimportant.” Dan lifts Phil’s bandaged hand up, presses his lips over the site of the injury. “So how? How could you have prevented a heart attack? They’re not exactly— you can’t say I diagnose you with heartattack.”

  
  
“Well, no.” Phil’s pout turns into a frown, his brain trying to work out how to pin it back on him even if Dan’s making a little bit of sense. “But—“

  
  
“No, stop it. Did she smoke?” Dan asks, plopping down to join Phil in his new floor house. “Have a high cholesterol? High blood pressure?”

  
  
“No, she didn’t. She said they were death sticks and that people who vape are annoying little buggers.” Phil laughs, “And no, not last time anyway. Last time she was here all her works were fine.”

“And was she active?”

  
  
“Yeah, she went power walking.”

  
  
“Diabetes?”

  
  
“No.”

  
  
“Drink a lot?”

  
  
“No, she said she had some wine once a month at a book club.”

  
  
“Then there wasn’t even early warning signs, Phil, you can’t tell her how to decrease risk factors for a heart attack if none of the risk factors are there.” Dan explains, like he’s the one who’s been here for ten years. “So stop blaming yourself, I won’t let you and I bet she wouldn’t let you either.”

Phil tips his head down onto Dan’s shoulder, and Dan lets it happen. Let’s them both sit there for ten minutes in silence, whilst Phil processes it all, tries to let Dan’s words soothe him even though all his insides are still fighting with him. “Ok.” He finally says, “ok.”

  
  
“Good. Phil, heart attacks are— crap. They’re crap and they happen and we can rarely prevent them, you know that.” Dan bumps his shoulder, forcing Phil to lift his head and be met by this _look._ This stupid, soft look that might actually give Phil a heart attack if it goes on for much longer. 

“I know, I know that. She just trusted me, so much, she was always here and she always asked for me and I feel like.. I should’ve seen it coming. I don’t know how, just should’ve known.” He dips his chin to his chest, anything to get away from Dan’s gaze. This whole let’s just be friends thing was a stupid idea, he spends half his time thinking about how nice it had felt to kiss Dan and wouldn’t it be great to do it again. 

“Can’t see the impossible coming, not even you. She trusted you because you’re an amazing doctor, Phil, not because she thought you could gift her with immortality.” And Dan’s right, probably.

  
  
“But wouldn’t it have been cool if I could’ve?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think immortality is as great as people imagine it to be.” Dan shrugs, then he’s going into his pocket and handing Phil an actual, proper chocolate muffin. Not a raisin in sight.“These though, these are as great as everyone imagines.” 

-

“Jesus fucking christ.” Phil's hand grip the steering wheel, and he would slam on the gas peddle but he’s sure his heart has jumped down there to hide. He’s been sat in his car for about ten minutes, just staring off into space.“I thought I was about to get murdered.” 

“I could still do that, if you want.” Dan shoves his bag in the backseat, Phil takes that as a _drive, i’m coming with you._

“I’d rather you didn’t, not in the mood for it today.”

  
  
“Tomorrow?”

  
  
“Maybe.” Phil shrugs, shucking an arm around the back of Dan’s seat as he looks out the back window, finding a free moment to reverse. 

“That’s weirdly hot, like yes please keep reversing it’s doing something for me.” Dan gets all horny, Phil pinches the back of his neck.

“Shutup, you fiend. Am I dropping you back off at yours?” Phil’s finally out onto the main road, an ordeal in itself - made worse by the fact Dan’s looking all turned on in the passenger seat. Sometimes Phil doesn’t get it, this dynamic they’ve created. He wonders if it’s a safety thing, we can joke about sex and feelings to convince the other we don’t actually have those feelings.. don’t want to fuck. 

“No. I’m coming back with you. I need to stop the next downward spiral, I can’t have you back blaming yourself.” It’s a bit like whiplash, from horny to sincere in a second.

  
“Oh.” Phil answers, shocked in a way that sounds like his brain has given up for the day. “You don’t have to.”

  
  
“You helped me out, so.”

-

“We’re both off tomorrow, yeah?” Dan’s shouting from his living room, he’s been going through Netflix for at least twenty minutes - _everything is crap, Phil, can’t someone make something fucking original for once._

“Yeah, why?” Phil doesn’t shout back, just because he knows it’ll force Dan up and into his kitchen. He’s glad he’s here now, he’d opened his cupboard the second he’d gotten home and all the Tupperware had made him lose it a little.

  
  
“You know you can shout, yeah? Project your voice a little.” Phil hides his smile in his mug. Dan is beyond predictable sometimes, joins him in the kitchen with this sullen little look his face. 

“I did shout, just your shouting is like.. ridiculous. Your normal person voice is everyone else’s shouting voice.” Which is the polite way of saying Dan is loud, louder than anyone Phil’s ever met before. He’s not shy about screaming over A&E, loudly announcing himself whenever he walks into Phil’s office, laughing like a hyena. It’s all — endearing.

“Whatever.” Dan flicks him in the ear as he passes, wearing Phil’s pyjamas because the second they’d got back to Phil’s apartmentDan had decided it was imperative he stay the night - and who was Phil to argue? “As I was saying, before you so rudely.. was rude to me, we’re both off, yeah?”

  
  
“Yeah.” Phil nods, their schedules were still very much in sync. He seems to spend his every waking moment with Dan tailing him, or him tailing Dan - Dan would say the latter. “You already knew that.” 

“I was just checking.” He’s making himself at home in Phil’s kitchen, eating cereal out of the box as he lounges against the counter. Phil’s sure if he held a mirror up to his own face he’d look incredibly fond, and at this point he’s honestly beyond fighting it. He likes Dan, that’s that, he can’t magically switch his feelings off but he can keep them underwraps - word wise, definitely not face wise. 

“Ok, just checking, who are you now?”

  
  
Dan looks befuddled, his eyebrows doing something crazy like he isn’t in control of them. He opens his mouth, shuts it, spits out a couple of crunchy nut in the process— then it finally clicks in his brain, “oh, shut-up! You’re such a fucking menace.” 

“You’re all dimples though, which means you enjoyed it.” Phil wants to stand up, wants to poke his fingers into Dan’s cheeks and then maybe go one step further, wants to wrap himself up in Dan and not think about the consequences. He stays firmly planted in his chair, all the daydreams are just that - daydreams. 

“Stop using my own face against me, not my fault I have muscle issues.” Dan huffs, the sullen thing back and Phil can think about nothing bar how adorable he is. This twenty nine year old 7000 ft tall man is adorable, and Phil can barely stand it. 

“Sorry, sorry. What was your original point going to be?”

  
  
“Just thinking, we could spend all day tomorrow literally doing nothing but watching shit movies and eating all the food in your kitchen.” Dan finally stops with the cereal, plops down in the seat next to him. They’re sat so close they’re touching at multiple points, Dan’s all elbows and knees pressed against Phil and again Phil thinks about how unfair the world is. 

“We can do that.” Phil smiles, and the one he gets back in return is almost blinding.

Fucked. He’s so unbelievably fucked.

_1 week later_

“Oh, Phil! Letter on your desk, doesn’t look like the usual boring stuff.” Alice tells him, urges him towards his desk with a look on her face that screams _I already know exactly what it is._

_Dr Philip Lester (Or Dr Dreamboat for short),_

_If you’re reading this then i’m dead, what a joy. I was getting sick of walking up the stairs in my house! I’m sure you’ll be blaming yourself because you’re like that, and you should stop right now because it’s not. You listened to be more than any other doctor ever did. They always brushed me off as this paranoid, feeble old woman. You treated me like a human being, and that’s all I’d ever wanted. That hospital is lucky to have you, and if I knew how to use yelp i’d leave it a five star review all because of you._

_I saw you the other week in Tesco. I like to get out early to do my shopping, again with the feeble old lady image.. everyone in a supermarket treats me like i’m an idiot, too. What is it with these youngens? That’s not the point, the point is I saw you with this handsome gentleman. You looked happy, ecstatic, thrilled and all the other words that mean the same. I thought oh.. he must be in love, but then you also knocked over toilet roll so who knows what to think. He looked at you picking it up from the ground like you weren’t stupid, but instead that you were this precious beautiful thing (You are, of course, but coming from him i’m sure it means a lot more). If my eyes aren’t deceiving me I think he feels the same way about you, as you do about him. And as my dying wish… I say go for it. The quicker I die, the quicker you have to go for it so.. here’s hoping._

_Sorry, that was awfully morbid. For someone so paranoid i’m very flippant about death. I’m writing this letter now because I just.. have a feeling? Can you have a feeling about your own death? I don’t know. I just think i’m soon to be reunited with my husband and I need to get all the paperwork out of the way first. I’ve written you a letter like this before, just had to write a new copy to get in my previous point about Mr Tall and Curly. The last one was me trying to set you up with my granddaughter, and as I now know she’s very much not your type._

_Enclosed is my biscuit recipe, I KNOW you never actually went and shared them with any of your colleagues. Now you can make them all by yourself instead of waiting for me, you can store them in all the Tupperware I left with you._

_Love,_

_Margaret(your favourite patient, I bet)._

_P.s thank you for crying for me, I know you did._

_-_

He tells Dan about the letter, but he absolutely doesn’t show it to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic should now be back to regular updates (now i'm done with the whole i'm going to write 30,000 words in a week fic) 
> 
> lemme know what you think and I am/..... sowwy 4 this chapter


	9. Chapter 9

It’s another job on Phil’s list of three thousand and one things to do— Junior doctor reviews. It’s a quick checkin, a how are you doing, secretly a _we need to make sure you’re good so that our patients can be good, too._

He’s had the odd person over the last few years drop out on the spot, these declarations about how they’re just not cut out for it, how human blood actually does make them feel a little bit sick.

So far this morning he’s still got everyone on board, though the last woman in his office looked to be walking a rather thin line— probably made thinner this afternoon when she has to sit in on a major surgery. 

There’s another knock, A Dan knock— rare, he usually just bursts into Phil’s office like it’s his own, like he has every right to be there. Which, honestly, he does. He keeps Phil grounded sometimes, tethered to the earth when all he wants to do is float away like a big inflatable parade float. 

After the Margaret situation Dan's kept a close eye on him— makes him eat lunch when he's stressing over spreadsheets, once he even made him meditate on the floor of his office.

“Hey,” Dan pops his head around the door, “can I come in.”

  
  
“You’ve literally never asked me that question before.” Phil snorts, beckoning him inside whilst he scribbles Dan’s details onto the review form. 

“It seemed formal, thought I should follow the procedures and shit.”

  
  
“And shit.”  


“Yeah, that’s the right terminology, isn’t it?” Dan drops into the seat across from Phil’s desk— his favourite spot as of late.

He hasn’t seen him yet today, is glad of the fact because how he looks is awfully distracting.He’s had a haircut, his curls look tighter— more defined. Phil’s a bit .. he’s staring at them, properly staring— wants to know if they’re soft or if they’re all crispy from hairspray.

“Uh— hello? Have I got a fucking bird on my head?” Dan asks, looking a bit self-conscious even though he should never feel that way because he’s, quite frankly, the most beautiful man on planet earth. 

Phil’s been up for too long without sleep, clearly, if this is what today has come to— waxing poetic about Dan in his overtired brain.

“Yeah, probably. Bit sparrow like.” 

“Right, tell it not to take a crap. I literally just washed it.”

“It looks good, suits you.” Phil thinks that it more than suits him, but he’s a bit overeager today and if he lets himself start talking then he may never shut up about how he feels about Dan. 

“Oh.” Dan smiles, the self-consciousness turning into something more bashful. And Phil thinks it’s all a bit funny, he’s had his fingers inside Dan and yet he’s turning pink at a throwaway comment about a haircut. “Thanks. Wasn’t sure.”

  
  
“Right. Important note, that. Good place to start your official review.” He pretends to write it down, laughs when Dan goes all loud— when he tries to bat the pen out of his hand.

“Phil!”

  
  
“Kidding, kidding. I hadn’t even taken the lid off.” 

-

“But you’re finding your feet, yeah?” They actually get around to the review part, eventually. After ten minutes of winding each other up— doing something other people may consider flirting.

“I like it.” Dan’s chewing on his thumb nail and Phil wants to reach out and stop him— wants to reach out and do a lot of things. “I don’t think university could ever prepare you for the real thing, no matter how many labs you attend and how much extra reading you do.”

  
  
“I know, people’s actual lives being on the line is always going to be.. different. You’re handling it well.” And he has been, Phil’s rather proud of how far he’s come in so little time. He’s really going to help people, really wants to. 

“It is, yeah.” He finally takes his thumb out of his mouth, lips all pink and glossy and— fuck, Phil really needs to go to sleep. 

“Any ideas about what you want to do? You can stay in A&E with me, or you can branch off and do split days. Some with me, others in the field you want to practise medicine in once your junior status is up.” He wants to be selfish, wants Dan to stay with him because of a lot of reasons— the main reason being he’s genuinely good, genuinely helpful. He has a big heart and you need that here. 

“Nope.” He pops the P, like he’s aware Phil’s got a bit of a thing for his mouth today. “I like being down in the action with you. Never a dull moment, and all that.” 

“And I like having you with me, you’ve taken half the brunt of Alice and her bullying me. Worked out rather well.” She’s secretly cheering them on from the sidelines, chucks a wink Phil’s way whenever they leave the building together. She’s good at never saying anything in front of him, not one of those weird ‘friends’ who go out of their way to embarrass you. 

“She loves us, really. The other morning she gave me her last rolo, which is the proper sign of someone liking you.” But anyone could like Dan, so that’s hardly surprising. 

“Everyone who steps foot in here has something nice to say, we do get patient feedback, you know? Often.. unsolicited.” Phil has a few Dr Sexy’s piled away somewhere— in his official file.

“Fuck, really? This old woman said she wanted a doctor who didn’t look like an overgrown baby man. Is that technically classed as liking someone?” 

“I mean— I get where she’s coming from, especially pre-haircut.” Phil teases, just to see the little show of pouting Dan will put on.

“This isn’t a review, this is bully Dan time.” 

“This has also overrun by five minutes, Howell. Go on, out. I have other people to see. All in all, you’re an excellent addition to the team— but a distracting one, now go tell Ain she’s next.” 

“Fine.” Dan gets up, hesitates in the doorway. “Could we - can we talk after work?”

  
  
Phil’s heart objects to it immediately. “Sounds ominous.” 

“Oh, shutup. It isn’t.”

  
  
“That didn’t reassure me.” Nor his heart that is now out of place, a bit lower down than it probably should be.

“Can we?”

  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Go on, go get my next happy doctor customer.”  
  


-

Phil has an un-interesting day, in all honesty. A few broken arms here, a fracture there.

Nothing that keeps him distracted from Dan— from the _talk.  
_

Six o’clock comes around too quickly, Dan stood smiling in the main entrance waiting for Phil— who feels as though he’s about to be dumped from a relationship he’s not even in. 

“You look like you’re walking to your death.” Dan holds open the door for him— hold being.. generous, considering it’s automatic. 

“I might be, feel like you’re going to lure me back to my car and then use it to run me over.” He know what he wants it to be, how he'd like tonight to go, for them to stop this whole dancing around each other business. 

“Can you read my mind? That was my plan, gonna have to come up with something a bit more surprising now.” They’re going to Phil’s car— probably back to his, somewhere they’ve been before but suddenly feels new. “But let’s be honest, you’re more likely to run yourself over. You drive like— like you welcome death.”

“My driving is fine! You get in my car enough, mustn’t be that bad.” Phil points out, smug for an entire second before he remembers how Dan clings to the door handle like he’s about to be flung out and onto the road at any second. “ _Oh_. You are so dramatic. It’s a ten minute drive.” 

“Ten minutes of pure danger.” Dan puts on a huge song and dance— makes sure the seatbelt is clicked in fifteen times, braces for impact.

“You’re ridiculous, you know?”

  
  
“Yeah, but you like it.”

  
  
“Yeah,” Phil smiles, all fond in the way that Dan makes him. “I do. God help me. Where we going?”

  
  
Dan looks at him like he’s stupid, then looks at him like he’s sexy when he starts the whole putting putting the car into reverse thing. “Stop it, dumbo. Were you this horny during all your drivers tests?”

  
  
Dan shakes his head, “no, but then not all of my driving instructors had had their fingers up my arse. Well, none of them— just to clarify.” 

“Stop it.” Phil repeats, but it’s quieter this time— bit more embarrassed. 

Dan throws his head back against the headrest, the loudest laugh possible leaving him. Phil would love to pretend to be mad, for even a second, but all he is is.. falling. Every day he falls just that little bit further and he’s afraid of what’s going to happen when he reaches the bottom. 

“We’re going to yours, obviously.”

“Obviously. Do you even have a place to live? Kinda feel like you’re slowly just spending more and more days at mine.” Phil’s never gone to Dan’s, always his. 

They always sit on his sofa, always sleep in his bed, always eat his cereal. 

“No, I live in your car. Hop out in the morning before you get in, would honestly rather walk to work.” Dan’s rooting around in Phil’s glove compartment, triumphant when he pulls out a bag of sweets. “Knew it. I didn’t have any lunch.”

  
  
“You should’ve said, I’d have got you some.”

  
  
“Yeah. I know, thanks.” Dan squeezes just above Phil’s knee, and he’s almost ashamed off the way it makes him feel— how so little can do so much.

“But really, what’s your deal?” He asks, changing the subject— diverting away from _your hand feels like heaven_. “You’re all mystery.”

  
  
“Hardly.” Dan speaks around a cola bottle. Phil opens his mouth wide, hopes Dan gets the hint— he does, delivers a lovely little sugary treat. “Junior doctor salary is hardly enough for a big boy lives on his own apartment. I have flatmates.” 

“Ah. And you’re afraid that if they meet me they’ll fall in love with me, got it.” Phil winks— tries to, more like a double fail of a blink. 

“Yeah, so scared of my lesbian roommate and the fifty year old bloke falling in love with you.” Dan’s deadpan delivery makes Phil laugh, then makes him almost crash into a lamp-post.

“I told you— fuck, you’re a fucking menace to society. Don’t talk to me for the rest of the way.” 

-

“Hi.”

  
  
“Hi.” 

“I don’t know any words in other languages yet, can that be the only greeting we do for today?” Phil pleads, sat in his kitchen with a serious looking Dan. 

He wants to delay for as long as possible, wants to make a five course meal using every ingredient in his kitchen if it stops whatever is coming next. 

“I suppose, you uncultured swine.” Dan softens, links their ankles together beneath the breakfast bar. “Hi.”

  
  
“We already said that.”

  
  
“Yeah, I know. Just thought i’d let you know i’m here, not just an illusion in your mind.”

  
  
“I thought you were a ghost, are you not? The dude who haunts my apartment and steals all my food and then complains about my driving— even though he can literally float.” And this is easy, this back and forth - something he never wants to be over.

He never wants the easy to end. 

“No, not a ghost.” And he’s closer all of a sudden, very much in Phil’s space. “I really fucking hope not, anyway.” 

“Dan—“

  
  
“Please? Shit. I’ve tried so fucking hard to stop wanting to do this all the time, every time I see you I have to tell myself i’m not allowed— but I am. I am fucking allowed, aren’t I? Please tell me i’m allowed, Phil.” He sounds wrecked, like this had been building up for an eternity.

“You’re allowed, Dan.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sowwy this took so long! my brain just said..... >:( no words for this fic!
> 
> thankyou for your patience! and as always lemme know ur thoguhts<3


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